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dsrtao_Extraordinary Circumstances_, Cynthia Cooper
The accountant who ran WorldCom's internal audit department tells all. Set in a foreign land where churches and pastors are important and constant religious references are normal. (If a neighbor wrote a bible verse on a note and tacked it to my door, I'd be considering harassment charges, not thanking them for the kind thought.) Despite the subtitle (The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower) Ms. Cooper was not a whistleblower; she didn't call up the SEC and say, hey, there's a lot of fraud over here in WorldCom. She discovered evidence of massive fraud (the first time she sees a questionable number, it's half a billion dollars) and reported it to the internal company audit committee, just as she was supposed to do. Then she showed a little bit of courage in pursuing more evidence, but at no point did she take it further outside the company than the external auditors.
History is largely examples of things not to do; this is more of them.
The accountant who ran WorldCom's internal audit department tells all. Set in a foreign land where churches and pastors are important and constant religious references are normal. (If a neighbor wrote a bible verse on a note and tacked it to my door, I'd be considering harassment charges, not thanking them for the kind thought.) Despite the subtitle (The Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower) Ms. Cooper was not a whistleblower; she didn't call up the SEC and say, hey, there's a lot of fraud over here in WorldCom. She discovered evidence of massive fraud (the first time she sees a questionable number, it's half a billion dollars) and reported it to the internal company audit committee, just as she was supposed to do. Then she showed a little bit of courage in pursuing more evidence, but at no point did she take it further outside the company than the external auditors.
History is largely examples of things not to do; this is more of them.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-01 06:43 pm (UTC)His moral "purity" is under question since not only did he take the documents, but he got paid for them by the German government (some reports said he got $1 million).
So the question that is raised, is committing one crime (taking private documents) justified if it reveals a bigger crime (worth, perhaps, billions). Getting paid for doing this allows those in Lichtenstein to pretend to be outraged and thus deflect the focus from their own misdeeds. In the US there is a whistle blower law which gives the person a reward as a percentage of the moneys reclaimed from the fraud.
The financial experts on the BBC just figured that the money would now flow to the two remaining rogue tax havens: Cayman Islands and Andorra.
If these people really think these are the only two places people are hiding money they need to find a new profession - being business reporters isn't it.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-03-01 09:21 pm (UTC)I would be surprised if there weren't a money laundering operation of some sort in my town, and shocked if there were less than five significant ones in Boston.