If you're a board of director for a large Fortune 500 company, should you expect other directors to investigate you and unearth your phone records?
I think most of us would say NO. However, that's what's happened at Hewlett Packard. Investigators hired by board members impersonated other board members and obtained phone records with partial social security numbers. The new is all over the Internet: the New York Times had an interesting article yesterday, as well as an article about how easy it is to obtain phone records.
The law has struggled with how to apply ethics to the boardroom since Enron, Worldcom, etc. There is a certain supposition that there is a foundational level of behavior below which people don't sink. With each new scandal, the true hearts of men and women are revealed. So how should the law respond? What do you think?
2 comments:
I always thought it would be fascintating to work for a fortune 500 company, just see how it all works.
You see things on tv and wonder if that is how it really is.
At my job it is just me and my employer, so I am the "staff" so to speak.
In a way, I would be a bit put-out if someone went through my phone records, but since I have nothing to hide, I guess it wouldn't really matter.
I was on a board once. I was totally bored! I can't just sit and talk about doing stuff. I want to make it happen.
Maybe going through phone records was just a fun way to add excitement to the board meetings . . .
Gee, that's a fiction writer for you!
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