Reference no: EM133346055
Case Study: The value of ethics in business finance cannot be overstated. In a fluid and risk-prone environment, businesses constantly strive to maximize profit while complying with financial regulations and maintaining public trust. However, there can be a fine line between what is legal, what is ethical, and what is profitable, and businesses and their employees may be tempted to make unethical financial decisions. Such decisions can have far-reaching repercussions. One need look no further than the financial meltdown arising from mortgage securitization improprieties in 2008, or the Enron and MCI WorldCom frauds in the early 2000s, to see how unethical behavior affects not only companies, but the clients and communities they serve. Financial analysts need to be alert to these risks to ensure they are doing their job properly and when making recommendations to financial managers who advise clients. Prompt For the final project for this course, you will be provided with a case study of a company that has experienced a legal and ethical incident. You will imagine you work for a firm that has been hired by the company to review the incident, focusing on the organization's ethical standards relative to its operating environment and its compliance framework, and to discuss the factors that gave rise to the ethical and legal violation(s) as well as the consequences both for the company and for the broader community. do initial analysis that addresses these issues and recommends corrective actions to address the violation and ensure that such behavior does not happen again. Imagine you are an analyst working at a financial consulting firm. Your organization has been hired by the company in the given case study to provide advice following a major legal and ethical crisis. You have been asked to draft an initial analysis of the incident for your supervisor's review. He has requested that you gear the analysis toward the company's executive committee and board of directors, reviewing the company's legal and ethical framework-both in terms of internal self-governance and external compliance with industry and regulatory standards-and assessing how and why existing processes failed. He has also asked that you conclude by suggesting ways to mitigate the impacts of the crisis and to ensure that it does not happen again. (Note that if the company in the case study is no longer in business, you should imagine that it is for the purposes of this assessment and respond to questions relative to today's financial regulatory framework unless otherwise directed in the prompt.)
Conclusions: Use this section to suggest corrective actions, based on your analysis, that address the legal and ethical violation(s) in the case study and help keep such behavior from occurring again. Specifically: A. What, if anything, would you do differently to mitigate the risk factors identified in your fraud triangle analysis? Justify your response, stating the specific recommendation(s), your reason for suggesting it, and the expected outcome. B. Suggest corrective actions designed to balance business strategic and financial goals with legal and ethical requirements. Justify your response, stating the specific recommendation(s), your reason for suggesting it, and the expected outcome. C. Suggest actions the company might take to foster a culture of corporate social responsibility and regain public trust. Justify your response, stating the specific recommendation, your reason for suggesting it, and the expected outcome. D. Assess the economic costs and benefits of instituting your recommended changes and complying with new regulatory environments.
Questions: In particular:
1. What are the costs and challenges associated with implementing your recommendations in general terms? Do the benefits outweigh the costs? Justify your response.
2. How do the costs and benefits of new regulatory environments impact financial decision-making, even in companies that are behaving ethically? Justify your response, citing relevant industry research. In other words, what will it cost companies in the industry to comply with new regulations that may arise in response to the unethical behavior in the case? What are the benefits to having these types of new regulations? You may find it helpful to use a recent regulatory change, such as the 2012 Dodd-Frank Act, to help ground your discussion.