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The Hero of the Case 案件英雄 No integrity questions can be raised about Cynthia Cooper whose careful detective work as an internal auditor at WorldCom exposed some of the accounting irregularities apparently intended to deceive investors. Originally assigned responsibilities in operational auditing, Cynthia and her colleagues grew suspicious of a number of peculiar financial transactions and went outside their assigned responsibilities to investigate. What they found was a series of clever manipulations intended to bury almost $4 billion in misallocated expenses and phony accounting entries.45 没有诚信的问题，可以提出关于辛西娅•库珀，其作为一个内部审计师在世通公司小心侦探工作，暴露出一些显然是欺骗投资者的会计违规行为。最初在业务审计赋予的职责，辛西娅和她的同事们怀疑一些奇特的金融交易，并且走到外面分配给他们的责任进行调查。他们发现了一系列巧妙的手法，旨在埋葬几乎达40亿美元的分配不当开支和虚假的会计分录。 Anative of Clinton, Mississippi, where WorldCom's headquarters was located, Ms. Cooper conducted her detective work was in secret, often late at night to avoid suspicion. The thing that firs t aroused her curiosity came in March 2002 when a senior line manager complained to her that her boss, CFO Scott Sullivan, had usurped a $400 million reserve account he had set aside as a hedge against anticipated revenue losses. That didn't seem kosher, so Cooper inquired of WorldCom's accounting firm, Arthur Andersen. They brushed her off, and Ms. Cooper decided to press the matter with the board's audit committee. That put her in direct conflict with her boss, Sullivan, who ultimately backed down. The next day, however, he warned her to stay out of such matters. 密西西比克林顿Anative，世通公司总部坐落在这里。库珀女士是秘密的进行她的侦探工作，为了避免怀疑经常在深夜。这件事情第一次引起了她的好奇心实在2002年3月，当一个高级直线经理跟库珀女士抱怨她的老板，CFO（首席财务官）Scott Sullivan, 篡夺一个4亿美元的储备账户，他留出来作为对冲预期收入损失，这似乎不太合适。所以库珀寻味世通公司的会计师事务所，Arthur Andersen（安达信），他们对她不屑一顾，库珀女士决定到董事会的审计委员会按压此事。但这个使她与她的老板Sullivan直接冲突，谁最终退缩。然后，第二天，Sullivan 警告她远离这样的事情。 Undeterred and emboldened by the knowledge that Andersen had been discredited by the Enron case and that the SEC was investigating WorldCom, Cynthia decided to continue her investigation. Along the way, she learned of a WorldCom financial analyst who was fired a year earlier for failing to go along with accounting chicanery.46Ultimately, she and her team uncovered a $2 billion accounting entry for capital expenditures that had never been authorized. It appeared that the company was attempting to represent operating costs as capital expenditures in order to make the company look more profitable. To gather further evidence, Cynthia's team began an unauthorized search through WorldCom's computerized accounting information system. What they found was evidence that fraud was being committed. When Sullivan heard of the ongoing audit, he asked Cooper to delay her work until the third quarter. She bravely declined. She went to the board's audit committee and in June, Scott Sullivan and two others were terminated. What Ms . Cooper had discovered was the largest accounting fraud in U.S. history.47 As single-minded as Cynthia Cooper appeared during this entire affair, it was an incredibly trying ordeal. Her parents and friends noticed that she was under considerable stress and was losing weight. According to the Wall Street Journal, she and her colleagues worried "that their findings would be devastating to the company [and] whether their revelations would result in layoffs and obsessed about whether they were jumping to unwarranted conclusions that their colleagues at WorldCom were committing fraud. Plus, they feared that th ey would somehow end up being blamed for the mess."48 It is unclear at this writing whether Bernie Ebbers will be held responsible for the accounting irregularities that brought down his second in command. Jack Grubman's final legal fate is also unclear. While the ethical quality of enthusiasm and sociability are debatable, the virtue of courage is universally acclaimed, and Cynthia Cooper apparently has it. Thus, it was not surprising that on December 21, 2002, Cynthia Cooper was recognized as one of three "Persons of the Year" by Time magazine. 目前还不清楚伯尼•埃伯斯是否会负责的会计违规行为带来了他的第二个命令在写这篇文章。杰克格鲁布曼最后的法律的命运目前还不清楚。虽然道德素质的积极性和社交性是值得商榷的，凭借勇气是有口皆碑的，辛西娅•库珀显然有它。因此，这并不令人感到意外，2002年12月21日，辛西娅•库珀被确认为三个“时代”杂志“年度人物”之一。 Questions For Discussion 讨论的问题： 1. What are the ethical considerations involved in a company's decision to loan executives money to cover margin calls on their purchase of shares of company stock? 涉及公司的决定贷款高管的钱用于掩盖他们购买公司股票的追加保证金通知的到的理由是什么？ 2. When well conceived and executed properly, a growth-through-acquisition strategy is an accepted method to grow a business. What went wrong at WorldCom? Is there a need to put in place protections to insure stakeholders benefit from this strategy? If so, what form should these protections take? 当正确的构思和执行，通过收购增长策略是一个公认的方法来种植业务。世通公司出了什么问题？是否有必要把在地方保护，以确保这一战略的利益相关者的利益吗？如果是这样，这些保护应该采取什么样的形式？ 3. What are the ethical pros and cons of a banking firm giving their special clients privileged standing in "hot" IPO auctions? 银行公司给他们特殊顾客安排在“hot”IPO拍卖中提供特权的伦理正反两方面是什么？ 4. Jack Grubman apparently lied in his official biography at Salomon Smith Barney. Isn't this simply part of the necessary role of marketing yourself? Is it useful to distinguish between "lying" and merely "fudging."? 杰克•格鲁曼显然在他的官方传记在所罗门美邦撒谎。难道这不是简单地推销自己的一部分必要的作用？它是有用的区分“说谎”，仅仅是“捏造”？ 5. Cynthia Cooper and her colleagues worried about their revelations bringing down the company. Her boss, Scott Sullivan, asked her to delay reporting her findings for one quarter. She and her team did not know for certain whether this additional time period might have given Sullivan time to "save the company" from bankruptcy. Assume that you were a member of Cooper's team and role-play this decision-making situation. 辛西娅•库珀和她的同事们担心他们拖垮公司的启示。斯科特•沙利文，她的老板，Scott Sullivan，问她耽误一季度报告了她的发现。她和她的团队不知道这一额外的时间段是否有可能给沙利文时间“拯救公司”破产。假设你是库珀的团队的一员，角色扮演决策的局面。 45 Pelliam, S. (2002). Questioning the Books: WorldCom Memos Suggest Plan to Bury Financial Misstatements. Wall Street Journal (July 9), A‐8. 46 Orey, M. (2002).Career Journal: WorldCom‐Inspired 'Whistle ‐Blower' Law has Weaknesses. Wall Street Journal (October 1), B‐1. 47 Colvin, G. (2002). Wonder Women of Whistleblowing. Fortune (August 12), 56+. 48 Pelliam, S., & Solomon, D. (2002). Uncooking the Books: How Three Unlikely Sleuths Discovered Fraud at WorldCom. Wall Street Journal (October 30), A‐1. http://www.ukassignment.org/mgessaydx/ |
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