The Three (3) Most Important Lessons America Learned From the Watergate Scandal “What is morally wrong can never be politically right” (Zeifman 210). This was said by President Abraham Lincoln and can be applied to many aspects of our American culture, most notably the controversial Watergate Affair. On June 17, 1972, five men attempting to break into and wiretap the Democratic National Committee offices located in the Watergate complex were apprehended by the police. These five gentlemen along with two other accomplices were tried and convicted in January 1973. These seven men were either directly or indirectly employees of President Nixon’s re-election committee and many persons, including the trial judge, John J. Sirica, suspected a conspiracy involving higher-level government officials.
Jeff Skilling served as President of Enron Energy Services for ten years, and then CEO of Enron, was indicted by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. “In May 2006, Skilling was convicted by a jury of one count of conspiracy, twelve counts of securities fraud, five counts of making false representations to auditors, and one count of insider trading.” Skilling not only lied to auditors; he also lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission during questioning in their investigation of Enron. The Securities and Exchange Commission was calling for Skilling to be required to pay restitution to those defrauded and hurt by his schemes. The Enron fiasco called for changes in not only auditing but also an internal control of financial reporting and accounting disclosures in an effort to improve investors trust. Skilling later appealed to the United States Supreme Court for theft of honest services, change of venue and voir dori.
During an investigation there were many questionable accounting transactions that were brought up, such as large executive bonuses as well as many loans for large amounts of money that were later forgiven without repayment. Kozlowski and Swartz were sentenced to 8 – 25 years in prison ("Investopedia", 2014). Then a lawsuit against Tyco cost the company $2.92 billion in repayment to its investors ("Investopedia", 2014). The biggest issue here was allowing for a CEO and CFO to have too much access to funds. A protocol should be in place that when a sale of stocks is made and no one authorized it then a full audit should take place from a third party or if a loan is going to be made then more then just the CEO and CFO’s approval needs to be given.
Federal Court where the jury found that the author, Chris Kyle, had unjustly enriched himself by defaming plaintiff Jesse Ventura. In the book, Kyle described blackening the eye of "Scruff Face", whom he later identified in media interviews as Jesse Ventura. The jury awarded $500,000 for defamation and $1,345,477.25 for unjust enrichment. The lawsuit, Ventura v. Kyle, is being appealed by the defendant's estate to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. In December 2014, attorneys for Ventura filed a separate lawsuit against HarperCollins, the parent company of the publisher, for failing to check the accuracy of the story it used in publicity.
Throughout the scandal that has caused unending controversies since breaking into the news six years ago, sufficient amounts of documentation showing that several of the former Nigerian Heads of State were beneficiaries of the Halliburton bribery scandal. The documents, addressed to the Chairman of Economic and Financial Crime Commission in February of 2008 lists former Nigerian leaders Ibrahim Bademasi Babangida, General Abdussalam Abubakar, General Sani Abacha and Chief Ernest Shonekan as being among 80 Nigerians who collected inducements in exchange for contract favors at the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas project (Anonymous, 2010). There appears to be no place to hide for these highly placed government officials who were allegedly involved in the $180 million Halliburton bribery scandal. Many Nigerians believe that the Halliburton scandal will help in the resolution of the government and anti-graft agencies to fight corruption in the country. In a statement made by Peter Esele, president general of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria, “We do not want a situation where those who stole billions from the nation’s coffers are walking freely while those who stole N5,000 are rotting in jail.
Its stock price fall and Ernst & Whinney found that Minkow is writing checks for nonexistent contracts. After denying Minkow from this case Ernst & Whinney resigned from auditing ZZZZ Best. Later, ZZZZ Best was under investigating and LA Police Department found the evidence of money laundering. Xerox is another scandal case. In 2002 the SEC lodged a complaint against Xerox saying that the company played with the records of the revenues during signing the contracts.
DEVELOPING PROFITABLE CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP. It is a challenging time for most business leaders today. Leaders are demanding their company’s grow and so marketers are continually focused on driving their products and services into the hands of new customers. Unfortunately this intense focus on attracting new customers has taken attention away from established or past customers. It is measurably more expensive to attract a new customer than to retain an existing customer.
Melissa Day HRM 587 Professor Stone Week 2 Images of Change November 8, 2013 Change frequently occurs in a company. That change can manifest itself in a change in leadership-like a new CEO, downsizing due to structural reordering, or acquiring new companies to improve business output and diversifying ones product line. From an employee (and for some members of management) standpoint change can cause fear and stress, because change shakes people from where they were comfortable and it asks them to do something different, something they may be uncomfortable with-however, the only constant in life (both personal and professional) is change. For my project, I have selected two companies that have undergone changes throughout the past year:
Sergio Marchionne Undertakes Culture Changes at Chrysler Group Simon Ware Excelsior College Author Note This paper was prepared for Organizational Business 311 and taught by Professor Gregory Gotches Sergio Marchionne Undertakes Major Strategic and Culture Change Chrysler Group In the new companies of today there is lots of competition and there are lots of competitors to go after the business. If a company doesn’t do things right they risk the possibility of having their doors shut forever. These results are affected by a number or variables such as profit line margins, corporate social responsibility, shareholder happiness, consumer perception and also their Organization Culture. Today I will be addressing the later of these examples which is the organization’s culture. Organization culture is one of the most important yet often overlooked aspects of many businesses today.
There can be a lot of factors as to why companies file for bankruptcy and closure. In the case of Enron, the first set of problems in the company manifested when traders reluctantly gambled with company assets in the oil market. They lost $90 million in a period of five days. Since then company reserves disappeared and auditors saved the company by reporting fake net worth and imprecise trading revenues resulting to accounting scandals in the company. Due to the company’s compound business model and unethical practices, they required that the balance sheet is to be modified accordingly to illustrate satisfactory