SHUAI MA
BUS 551-001 - Spring 2013: Legal & Ethical Environment
Professor Victor G. Petrigliano
2/18/13
Week 3 In my opinion, the Cola company has an ethical problem but not guilty. Here are some reasons for this statement. For the aspect of ethical, the problem is that no matter the company should be blame or not, the fact is Cola company’s products contain unacceptably high levels of pesticide residues. There may be some reasons for this, such as the company could not examine the pesticide residues level, the water in India itself has problem of pesticide residues, which is not necessarily the company’s fault. But there are so many customers enjoy the products that may be problematic, the company is automaticly involved. Guilty or not, they must come up with some solutions, otherwise the brand will suffer in the long run. As far as the legal part, the company should not be determined guilty. First of all, the reason for this result is unclear. It may be competitor setting them up, test samples being polluted, or the India local water resource has pesticide residues and so on. In that case, the government should control all the condition instead of punish the company as the products provider. As long as these problems exist, punishment will not change the situation and help the people who drink the products in India which is the main idea of government regulation. Moreover, if none of them is true, and the problem is caused by Cola Company internal, like process problem or even they do this anyway for lower the cost which is evil, they are still not guilty. Because there is evidence to prove this and no law to regulation the soft drink industry for containing pesticide residues level. According to the reading, government regulations concern the manufacture of soft drinks is completely ineffective and designed to help the soft drink industry rather than