In 2007 a Code of Conduct for transparency and disclosure was drawn up for the private equity industry in the United Kingdom. It was created, and still remains, as a voluntary code that firms can agree to sign onto at their leisure. Unfortunately, even after signing up voluntarily, many firms didn’t fully comply [...]

Bribery, according to the DOJ. Lucent technologies helped wrap up a DOJ investigation on Tuesday by agreeing to pay $1 million for FCPA violations. From 2000 to 2003 the company reportedly spent over $10 million on about 315 various trips for approximately 1,000 Chinese government officials. This included all expense paid trips [...]

A white state worker was awarded $150,000 by a federal jury after he claimed to have lost his job due to racial slurs said to him by his black boss. Mark Pasternak, who helped troubled youths for the state Office of Children and Family Services, worked under Tommy E. Baines for three years before [...]

The Level Playing Field Institute, a San Fransisco-based think-tank, estimated $64 billion as the “hidden cost” of work discrimination in a new research study. The company notes that even though the costs of and reasons for leaving a job are subjective, the figure was calculated by “multiplying the average annual compensation of a US [...]

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. announced the release of their 2006 Report on Ethical Sourcing, an annual document containing information on the company’s Ethical Standards Program. The report detailed that high risk violations of the company’s Standard for Suppliers code decreased more than 23 percent in 2006. The company cites educational outreach as the primary [...]

Final regulations regarding a California law mandating sexual harassment training for supervisors went into effect Friday, August 17th. California law AB 1825 requires all employers who supervise more than 50 employees to undertake two hours of sexual harassment training once every two years.
When first implemented in 2005, the law was unclear on whether web-based [...]

What happened to the good old days, when employees just raided the supply closet? Fidelity National reported that the personal data of as many as 8.5 million customers was taken by a senior database administrator at the company. The company suggested that this number, up from initial reports from Fidelity of 2.3 million, [...]

Casual Male won a $1.5 million settlement against both a former associate and a competitor.
A jury determined that Robert Yarbrough broke his contract with the company after he violated non-competition obligations and leaked company secrets. He was charged with $1.1 million in damages.
Westport Big & Tall, a competitor of Casual Male, was [...]

Home Depot confirmed yesterday that it terminated four purchasing managers nearly two weeks ago for allegedly taking over $1 million in kickbacks from suppliers.
Reportedly, the three lower-level managers were taking large bribes from flooring vendors out of Asia in return for featuring these vendors’ products in Home Depot stores.
Home Depot is cooperating with law [...]

Online virtual worlds like “Second Life” continue to grow at a rapid clip. Commerce, business meetings, and other far racier ‘encounters’ are becoming more commonplace in these virtual worlds.
To help protect its reputation, IBM announced this week that it was establishing a code of conduct to govern its more than 5,000 employees who [...]

A recent United Nations meeting on responsible business called attention to a company’s ethical performance as an important consideration for investors deciding which companies to back.
Citing findings from a recent survey by Goldman Sachs, Ling asserted that companies with strong ethical standards outperform the market. For example, companies on an ethical list compiled by [...]

Just after being ordered to cut a $2.3 million check for a sex discrimination lawsuit, banking giant UBS is looking at even more trouble ahead. Regulators in the State of Massachusetts have accused UBS of “dishonest” and “unethical” practices in their dealing with hedge fund advisors (and by “dishonest and unethical practices,” they mean “bribery”).
A [...]

According to a recent

A jury awarded a former Target employee nearly $1 million in response to his lawsuit against the retail giant. James Patton, who was demoted and then terminated following two weeks of service with the Oregon National guard, sued Target citing federal and state laws, which prohibit discrimination against military personnel and wrongful discharge.
The jury sided [...]

Beazer Homes USA Inc., a homebuilder under investigation by the FBI for potential fraud has fired its chief accounting officer for violating the company’s ethics policy by attempting to destroy documents. According to a filing with the SEC, “Michael T. Rand has been terminated for cause . . . due to violations [...]

InterContinental Hotels Group PLC, the world’s largest hotels operator, announced this week that its Asia Pacific chief executive had resigned after the company discovered that he lied on his résumé.
Patrick Imbardelli was on the verge of being appointed to InterContinental’s board when the company learned that the Singapore-based executive did not have degrees from Cornell [...]

In another stunning example about “HOW NOT TO” set the proper tone from the top, a former member of the German parliament and the ex-director of Volkswagen’s works council was convicted yesterday of using company money to buy prostitutes and lying to cover it up.
The former head of Volkswagen’s work council had [...]

Wellpoint announced this past week that the organization insisted that its CFO, David Colby, step down due to an unspecified violation of the Wellpoint Code of Conduct. According to the company, concerns raised in “recent days” prompted Wellpoint to act swiftly by commissioning an outside legal firm to investigate – the firm then confirmed that [...]

Warning, you will learn nothing useful by reading the rest of this story; if you don’t have time for that – move on!
Unless you live in a cave, you know that Paul Wolfowitz was fired asked to step aside as head of the World Bank after weeks of international furor. While politics [...]

Our code of conduct assessment series brings us next to the New York-based IT software behemoth, CA, Inc.
CA’s Code of Conduct jump starts with a personal letter from President & CEO John Swainson who sets an inspiring tone from the top with statements such as, “We use the word ‘our’ rather than ‘CA’ because [...]

We live in a different age. Paul Wolfowitz, the head of the World Bank, has been forced to resign over alleged improprieties involving securing a pay raise and better position for his girlfriend. While international politics and the Iraqi war certainly contributed to his downfall, the board of the World Bank focused on Wolfowitz’s [...]

Today’s NY Times has a lengthy piece entitled “Blinking the Elderly, With a Corporate Assist”. It is really rather a depressing piece about how information brokers, such as InfoUSA sells telemarketing lists to criminal organizations that in turn prey upon elderly to defraud them. The story features a 92-year old man [...]

China provides our blog with tons of news. There is always a fresh story about how everybody embraces bribery and fraud; followed by a fresh story about the government trying to crack down on corruption.
The latest is last week’s announcement by (try and say in one breath!): The Central Committee for Discipline Inspection [...]

FNB Corporation, the Pennsylvania-based holding company in charge of over 200 bank branches and personal finance offices, is the first in our new series on Codes of Conduct.
The “Corporate Governance” section of FNB’s website provides an unimaginative 13-page “Code of Conduct” document devoid of temperament and permeating with legal mumbo jumbo.
What becomes immediately [...]