Corporate and executive improprieties sometimes transcend the moral dimension and proceed to enter the domain of illegality. The most notorious example of current times is the Enron Scandal. In December of 2001, the Enron Corporation became one of the largest bankruptcies in U.S history, due to numerous charges and admissions of fraudulent practices. Not only did this bring about the downfall of the Enron Corporation alone, but the scandal also

Financial Executives International is the leading organization for CFO’s and other financial executives. Eight rules and guidelines have been outlined in this organizations code of ethics in order to promote ethical conduct in the practice of financial management throughout the world. Daryl Koehn who is the executive director of the Center of Business Ethics in Houston says that “Enron, like many other companies, developed what she calls a “good times” code of ethics that “presupposes that everything is going well with the core business, but does not address what happens when the core is under attack”. When the core business faced challenging situations, the actions of the directors violated legal requirements as well as the codes of ethics by which they touted themselves as embodying and upholding. The executives were selfish and ambitious and that stood in the way of them doing what is right.

Not only had Enron reported false profits by using accounting methods that failed to follow generally accepted procedures, but the external auditing firm Arthur Anderson failed to intervene, due to the fact that it made more money providing consulting services than it did providing auditing services. Although Anderson denied responsibility a jury found the firm guilty of obstructing justice in June of 2002 for destroying documents in anticipation of the SEC investigation.

Some topics in this essay:
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