By Rahul Garg
Welcome to the Ethics Corner sponsored by the Thunderbird Honor Council. In an effort to better educate our student body on ethical business practices, we will present to you an article, news link, or story from our own students that helps to showcase what is going on in the business world with ethical business behavior. We hope to create a dialogue between students to better prepare themselves for what might lie ahead in their careers. Moreover, we hope to provide information to better prepare you for your life ahead.
This week’s featured article puts into dollars and cents the costs that companies spend on internal investigations regarding illegal activities such as bribery and corruption. An increasing trend among firms is the creation of in-house compliance structures, positions, and whole departments to prevent FCPA violations before they occur.
“Penalties are in the multimillion-dollar range, and internal investigations are outrageously expensive. You add to that the reputational damage from a public FCPA investigation, shareholder lawsuits, whistle-blower risks and the possibility of jail time from your employees, and you’ve got an easy business case to make to a board member or CEO.” said Matteson Ellis, an attorney who specializes in FCPA-related issues.
The article, “The Costs of Compliance Grow?” by Ashby Jones can be found in the print edition of the Wall Street Journal (10/2/12, B4).