1. Evaluate the ethics of the actions taken by Siemens with respect to Josephson’s Six Pillars of Character and virtue decision making, as discussed in Chapter 1.
2. Under the German Criminal Code, much like the U.K. Bribery Act, all bribes are prohibited including facilitating payments. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in the U.S. makes a distinction between the two and permits facilitating payments made to induce a government official to carry out her designated responsibilities. From an ethical perspective, which of these two approaches are more consistent with virtue theory?
3. Comment on the following statement from an ethics perspective: Companies that make the mistake of trying to follow the bottom limits of legal behavior without championing ethics should learn from the Siemens case that once a culture of taking short cuts and ignoring values is in place, it is only a matter of time before employees cross the line into illegal conduct.
4. Review the 13 cases on bribing foreign government officials described in the SEC complaint referenced below. Summarize the accounting issues involved in each case and explain how the payments described violated the FCPA.