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Solutions to WorldComm Case Study Questions

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?
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?
3. What are the ethical pros and cons of a banking firm giving their special clients privileged standing in “hot” IPO auctions?
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.”?
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.
6. What could have been done to prevent this type of fraud from happening?
7. What items from this incident should auditors look for as having the potential to lead to fraud?

Additional files:

worldcomm_case.docx