Social enterprise owners believe that both social good and for-profit motivation can co-exist in the same organization. Needing an appropriate legal structure to support this dual vision of sustainability, the proponents launched the movement to legalize benefit corporations. Reiser, a Brooklyn Law School professor specialized in nonprofit organization law and a respected expert in the…
Johnson & Johnson recently agreed to pay $21.4 million to the US Department of Justice and $7.9 million to the United Kingdom’s Serious Fraud Office for making improper payments and receiving illegal gains from its subsidiaries’ business practices in Greece, Poland and Iraq. Accused of violating anti-bribery laws, J & J was said to have…
Alan Boeckmann, Chairman and CEO of Fluor Corporation joins the World Economic Forum’s Partnering Against Corruption Initiative (PACI) and explains that “fighting corruption makes good business sense.” Incentives to join this fight include financial, legal, ethical and socio-economic reasons. In this brief video clip, Boeckmann explains that the financial costs of corruption alone increase prices…
Global Advice Network, a private Danish consultancy firm, in partnership with seven countries’ Ministries of Foreign Affairs has developed a set of managerial decision tools for SMEs who are currently doing business in emerging markets or are considering entering these markets. The tools include: country profiles, due diligence, integrity system, specific information on anti-corruption…
Johnston purports that national rankings of corruption do not “illuminate corruption problems in detail.” Because corruption often is measured based upon surveys of business people, officials, and even citizenry, the results are opinion-based. There is no accepted international standard measure, such as the GDP, for corruption. He states that there needs to be an objective…
Out of 178 countries responding to the annual corruption index published by Transparency International, business leaders ranked the oil, gas and mining industries as the most corrupt. The perceived level of corruption in the US increased between 2009 and 2010. The oil, gas and mining industries contained the most bribery and were shown to be…
Business as usual in California means it is the season to report non-monetary economic interests received by elected state officials over the course of 2010. Unlike New York and Arizona, California legislators can accept gifts in kind from individuals, companies and lobby groups, as long as they are recorded. In spite of California’s $34.7 billion…
The State of Arizona has passed controversial state immigration law that would place limits on the Federal government’s responsibility to determine immigration and foreign policy. Several parts of the Arizona law were blocked by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco. These included the following obligations of state and local law enforcement officials:…