...Canada: Why Bernie Ebbers is Serving a 25-Year Jail Sentence BYLINE: By Garfield Emerson LENGTH: 6613 words 1. Background On September 26, 2006, Bernard J. Ebbers ("Ebbers"), the former Chief Executive Officer of WorldCom, Inc. ("WorldCom"), reported to a federal prison in Oakdale, Louisiana, to begin serving his 25-year jail sentence from his conviction by a jury on nine counts of conspiracy, securities fraud and related crimes related to the bankruptcy of WorldCom in July 2002. Ebbers' appeals from his conviction and 25-year jail sentence were dismissed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on July 28, 2006.1 In its decision upholding the jury conviction and the 25-year jail sentence imposed by the trial judge, the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit commented that Ebbers' actions that were specifically intended to create a false picture of profitability for WorldCom were "motivated by his personal financial circumstances".2 Ebbers personal finances imposed significant pressures on him to ensure that the WorldCom stock price did not fall and that WorldCom's guidance of its future financial performance and investors' expectations were met. Ebbers was a wealthy man with a significant personal business empire outside WorldCom. He had also accumulated millions of shares of WorldCom stock. However, he had borrowed over $400US million from banks, using his stock in WorldCom as collateral. As WorldCom stock price began to drop in 2000, Ebbers received margin...
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...to manipulate earnings with improper accounting entries. The key persons involved in the fraud were as follows; CEO Bernard Ebbers, CFO Scott Sullivan, the accountants were Bufford Yates (Director of General Accounting), David Meyers (Controller), Troy Norman (Director of Legal Entity Accounting), and Betty Vinson (Director of Management Reporting), pressured by CEO and CFO to prepare improper accounting entries. Those executives and accountants were convicted of securities fraud and received federal jail sentences after the manipulation came out in public. What institutional setting and pressures is Betty Vinson exposed to? WorldCom profits gone down in October 2000, and Better Vinson’s boss, Buford Yates (Jr. Director of General Accounting) asked her and another manager to release $828 million of line accruals into the income statement. The company was facing revenue and pricing pressure then, and the CEO had threatened his staffs about how he and other directors would lose everything if the company did not improve its performance. WorldCom’s corporate culture of encouraging “systemic attitude conveyed from the top down that employees should not question their superiors, but simply do what they were told” also made it more difficult for Vinson, who had developed a reputation as “she would do anything you told”, to oppose her boss. What choices does she have? Ethical dilemma she had is whether to obey her boss and accept the ethically wrong request or deny the request....
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...shift losses off the Olympus balance sheet. Olympus created a tobashi scheme to shift losses off the Olympus balance sheet. Companies located in the Cayman Islands were purchased via exorbitant Management and Acquisition Fees. When the first Western President, Michael Woodford, questioned these practices, he was fired after two weeks on the job. Woodford became perhaps the first CEO ever to blow the whistle on his own firm. The subsequent scandal brought arrests of the executive team, an 80% decline in share price, the threat of de-listing on the Tokyo Exchange, and an international look at Japanese Corporate Governance. A detailed list of questions along with extensive teaching notes, bibliography, and references are provided. The case should be of interest in an accounting audit, ethics, governance, or international accounting class. Keywords: Corporate Governance; Whistleblower; Fraud; Tobashi; Zaiteku; Derivatives; Confucian...
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...Ethical Decision Making Utilitarian Approach Individualism Approach Moral Rights Approach Justice Approach Factors Affecting Ethical Choices The Manager The Organization What Is Social Responsibility? Organizational Stakeholders The Ethic of Sustainability and the Natural Environment Evaluating Corporate Social Performance Economic Responsibilities Legal Responsibilities Ethical Responsibilities Discretionary Responsibilities Managing Company Ethics and Social Responsibility Ethical Individuals Ethical Leadership Organizational Structures and Systems Ethical Challenges in Turbulent Times Economic Performance Social Entrepreneurship Managerial Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this chapter, you should be able to do the following: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Define ethics and explain how ethical behavior relates to behavior governed by law and free choice. Explain the utilitarian, individualism, moral rights, and justice approaches for evaluating ethical behavior. Describe how individual and organizational factors shape ethical decision making. Define corporate social responsibility and how to evaluate it along economic, legal, ethical, and discretionary criteria. Describe four organizational approaches to environmental responsibility, and explain the philosophy of sustainability. Discuss how ethical organizations are created through ethical leadership and organizational structures and systems. Identify important stakeholders for an organization...
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...the theory of the firm; demand theory and estimation; production and cost theory and estimation; market structure and pricing; game theory; investment analysis and government policy. It includes numerous and extensive case studies, as well as review questions and problem-solving sections at the end of each chapter. Nick Wilkinson adopts a user-friendly problem-solving approach which takes the reader in gradual steps from simple problems through increasingly difficult material to complex case studies, providing an understanding of how the relevant principles can be applied to real-life situations involving managerial decision-making. This book will be invaluable to business and economics students at both undergraduate and graduate levels who have a basic training in calculus and quantitative methods. N I C K W I L K I N S O N is Associate Professor in Economics at Richmond, The American International University in London. He has taught business and economics in various international institutions in the UK and USA, as well as working in business management in both countries. Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge , UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521819930 © Nick Wilkinson 2005 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception...
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...Fourth Edition Financial Statement Analysis & Valuation Peter D. Easton University of Notre Dame Mary Lea McAnally Texas A&M University Gregory A. Sommers Southern Methodist University Xiao-Jun Zhang University of California, Berkeley Cambridge Business Publishers To my daughters, Joanne and Stacey —PDE To my husband Brittan, and my children Loic, Maclean, Quinn and Kay —MLM To my wife Susan, and my children Christian, Peter and Philip —GAS To my wife Sharon, my daughter Jasmine, and my parents 滕惠清 and 张祥林 —XZ Financial Statement Analysis & Valuation, Fourth Edition, by Peter D. Easton, Mary Lea McAnally, Gregory A. Sommers, and Xiao-Jun Zhang. COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Cambridge Business Publishers, LLC. Published by Cambridge Business Publishers, LLC. Exclusive rights by Cambridge Business Publishers, LLC for manufacture and export. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or stored in a database or retrieval system in any form or by any means, without prior written consent of Cambridge Business Publishers, LLC, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning. Student Edition ISBN 978-1-61853-104-9 Bookstores & Faculty: to order this book, call 800-619-6473 or email customerservice@cambridgepub.com. Students: to order this book, please visit the book’s Website and order directly online. Printed in...
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...Fourth Edition Financial & Managerial Accounting for MBAs Peter D. Easton Robert F. Halsey Mary Lea McAnally Al L. Hartgraves Wayne J. Morse Cambridge Business Publishers To my daughters, Joanne and Stacey —PDE To my wife Ellie and children, Grace and Christian —RFH To my husband Brittan and my children Loic, Cindy, Maclean, Quinn and Kay. —MLM To my wife Aline. —ALH To my family and students. —WJM Cambridge Business Publishers FINANCIAL & MANAGERIAL ACCOUNTING FOR MBAs, Fourth Edition, by Peter D. Easton, Robert F. Halsey, Mary Lea McAnally, Al L. Hartgraves, and Wayne J. Morse. COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Cambridge Business Publishers, LLC. Published by Cambridge Business Publishers, LLC. Exclusive rights by Cambridge Business Publishers, LLC for manufacture and export. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or stored in a database or retrieval system in any form or by any means, without prior written consent of Cambridge Business Publishers, LLC, including, but not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning. Student Edition ISBN 978-1-61853-102-5 Bookstores & Faculty: to order this book, call 800-619-6473 or email customerservice@cambridgepub.com. Students: to order this book, please visit the book’s website and order directly online. Printed in the United States of America. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 About the Authors ...
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...Multinational Corporations and Foreign Direct Investment This page intentionally left blank Multinational Corporations and Foreign Direct Investment Avoiding Simplicity, Embracing Complexity Stephen D. Cohen 1 2007 1 Oxford University Press, Inc., publishes works that further Oxford University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Copyright # 2007 by Oxford University Press Published by Oxford University Press, Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cohen, Stephen D. Multinational corporations and foreign direct investment: avoiding simplicity, embracing complexity / Stephen D. Cohen. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN-13 978-0-19-517935-4; 978-0-19-517936-1 (pbk.) ISBN 0-19-517935-8; 0-19-517936-6 (pbk.) 1. International...
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