The corruption allegations described above have not only seriously impeded the company’s reputation but also hurt its share price and reduced investors’ confidence. Blacklisted by the World Bank and downgraded to a credit rating of BBB by Standard & Poor’s decreased staff morale (Praet, 2013). SNC-Lavalin is facing a severe reputation crisis. In addition, the frequent publicity of the potential problems in the media significantly reduced the brand image (Philip, 2009). As a result, potential investors withdrew their capital creating adverse effects on the stock market (Wilkinson, 2013).
When the first scandal of the Kerala hydroelectric dam became public in February 2009 (Philip, 2009), the stock price dropped almost 22% from $37 to $29 within
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Joe Castaldo from Canadian Business magazine commented in the end of 2012 that “a shakeup is unlikely, given the entrenched nature of the board, at least until more is known about the charges against Duhaime and Ben Aissa. However, after suffering from the huge negative impacts of these corruption allegations, SNC-Lavalin experienced a significant change of its top management in 2012 and 2013 (Castaldo, 2012).
In Oct 2012, the board appointed Robert Card as the new president and CEO of the company. Since then, he has renewed the management team and launched a global ethics and compliance framework across the company (SNC-Lavalin Company Website, 2014). In March 2013, SNC-Lavalin made a very important but quick decision to hire Andreas Pohlmann as its Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) with almost 25 years of international compliance experience and successful experience in dealing with Siemens’ ethical crisis (SNC-Lavalin website). Right after Pohlmann joined, a number of changes have been implemented to rebuild SNC-Lavalin’s ethical culture to execute SNC-Lavalin’s strategy of “one global compliance policy” (Marowits, 2013). These changes
The bank at some point received negative attention for issuing credit to arms companies, including companies like Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Textron, Colbun, BAE Systems and EADS. Some companies within the bank’s portfolio have also been involved in environmental and labor rights violations scandals, for instance Wal-Mart and Total USA. This negative attention may lead to loss of investor confidence in the bank.
In order to operate ethically in a global marketplace, corporations like Exxon Mobil need to define the conduct that they expect from their officers, executives, managers and employees. Without a defined code of conduct, employees feel forced to use their personal mores to determine what actions they should take in ethically ambiguous situations. Like children on a playground, employees need to know where the fences are so that they can work effectively.
We as business owners, management and or in a role of authority must set, address and comply with a solid foundation of ethics. “A code of conduct is the single most important element of your ethics and compliance program. It sets the tone and direction for the entire function. Often, the code is a standalone document, ideally only a few pages in length. It introduces the concept of ethics and compliance and provides an overview of what you mean when you talk about ethical business conduct.”
The survey was performed in 2010 involving members of the Ethics and Compliance Officer Association (ECOA). They focused on the evolution of business ethics by analyzing six other studies over a span of two-and-a-half decades. Members of the survey were ethics manager, but members on the previous studies were regular employees and management. The results of the analysis of the previous studies showed that ethics programs in companies during a time span of the 1980’s through the 1990’s was used to show social responsibilities and not necessarily to enforce it throughout the company. It showed that ethics programs now that companies follow ethical laws and they are motivated to be ethical. Another result of the study showed that ethics training at companies has increased since the 1990’s due to the passing of Sarbanes-Oxley and other laws directed at ethics. The passing of the laws in the early 2000’s has led to ethics being a major component of everyday
The global market has shown exemplary contribution to the growth of the world's development until recently where financial crisis have been bombarding most economies. As a result, the cost of livelihood had been unaffordable to many who live below the dollar. The monetary crisis has led to the lowering of many currencies against the dollar, hence advancing the economy crisis to most worldwide nations. This turn of events has been attributed to the lack of exercise of business and management ethics in many multinational companies, firms and investments. Financial scandals have been the order of the past twenty years leading to the sweep over of the flourishing global market. The scandals, especially in larger companies and multinational, are spurred by inter and intra-conflicts in their organizational structures.
According to the textbook, ongoing challenges in the global business environment are mostly attributed to unethical business practices, failure to embrace technology advancements, and stiff competition among businesses. Imagine that you have been appointed as Apple’s Chief Compliance Officer and must prepare a video presentation for Apple’s suppliers regarding Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct to deliver via a web meeting. To prepare for your presentation, review Apple’s Supplier Code of Conduct,
Business ethics since the beginning of this decade has been slowly eroding; if we are to believe what we see and hear in the media. Several times a day, one can view some derogatory piece of information concerning a business. However, it must also be considered that these companies are contributing to that stigma. There have been a variety of companies and individuals who have figured prominently in the media concerning their unethical behavior.
This memo serves as notice that we will soon initiate efforts to develop and implement an ethics program as well as the appropriate training and an effective way to monitor those plans. As you are aware, consumers and partners want to work with companies they can trust, and having a program that will build management skills and effectively structure business controls is a great way to become transparent and build that trust. Overall, an effective ethics and compliance
In addition to short-term snags, long-term problems consists of probable damage to Coke’s reputation. Given the company’s history in 1977, when it left India rather that reveal its formula to the government and reduce its equity stake as required under FERA, it is a intimidating task that is before this CEO. Another possible long-term issue could be if the allegations are false it might
It's later CEO Paul O'Neill, empathized workplace health and safety to be one of the most important principles that all employees should abide by. Alcoa also implemented a global ethics and compliance program, and closely complied with the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines and Sarbanes-Oxley Act. In order to ensure that employees were adhering to the company's integrity approach, Alcoa appointed an ethics and compliance officer who regulated the company's a global code of conduct and continuously reported top Board on maintenance of not only its prescription with code but also on its ethics and compliance training for employees, as well as other related systems.
In an industry overwhelmed with fraud and corruption, Martin Marietta was ready to revamp their reputation to become an ethical company. This concept catapulted a decade of creating, developing, and tweaking an ethics program. Martin Marietta's goal was to maintain a work place with "descent people doing quality work" (page 1). But with this idea came a series of difficult challenges the company needed to overcome. Martin Marietta arose to the challenge and executed an elaborate ethics program. The programs successes were hard to measure at best. A SWOT analysis was designed to reflect upon all aspects of the ethics program. A case study was used to discuss Martin Marietta's
SNC-Lavalin is a public company based in Montreal that operates in over 50 countries providing EPC and EPCM services in industry sectors including oil and gas, mining and metallurgy, infrastructure and power. SNC-Lavalin has approximately 40,000 employees and is the largest infrastructure company in Canada by revenue and number of employees completing more than 400 projects across Canada. The company earns its revenue from 4 major categories of operations. The first one is providing construction services primarily in delivering structural mechanical, electrical, instrumentation, and piping services. It also provides services in planning, designing, construction evaluation and management for projects such as railroad construction, highways,
Every organization also has a profession responsibility to conduct business honestly and ethically. Our readings reported, “Experts estimated that U.S. companies lose about $600 billion a year from unethical and criminal behavior” Kinicki and Kreitner (2009). The organization could avoid having ethical issues by meeting the
When Parmalat filed for bankruptcy in 2004, it was clear that it would become one of the biggest corporate scandals in Europe (Buchanan & Yang, 2005). According to Melis (2005), gatekeepers failed to assure a true and fair view of Parmalat’s financial situation and performance. Neither rating agencies nor financial analysts could examine the developments at Parmalat in order to protect minority shareholders and prevent the
Unfortunately, the same issues that existed with the overall governance existed here. The company may have been acting as an exemplary corporate citizen, but with no overall strategy and minimal communication, there was no consistency or coordination, and the company was not getting the public relations benefits that they might have otherwise gained (Veleva, 2010).