Ethics Article Review
This paper will discuss ethics in the business world or the lack there of depending on your perception of the summarized article. Companies today are under severe scrutiny because of the abuse of a few over zealous executives who may have outplayed their hands. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has exposed more than a few of these executives who tried to fool the world. Now with the implementation of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act along with the SEC the public may now feel as though ethics may be restored in business again.
In a recent internet article that was written by Ben Ames, he told how two executives from Gateway Inc were found guilty on charges of fraud, making false statements to the accountant, violating record-keeping provisions of federal securities laws and aiding and abetting Gateway's violation of those laws. Gateway Inc is one of the top personal computer vendors in the nation and the top executives were found guilty of manipulating the numbers to meet Wall Street expectations. (Ames, 2007) The executive were John J. Todd, the company's former chief financial officer (CEO) and Robert D. Manza who was the former controller of Gateway. According to the SEC the two of them concealed important information about the company's success from the investors. In one of their schemes the company was offering credit to customers whose credit applications had previously been denied. The two executives then bragged about how great the company sales were doing without letting the stockholders know they were making such risky loans. Gateway will now have to try to regain the trust of investors and of the public because of this unethical busines ...