In 2002, Sherron Watkins along with Cynthia Cooper and Coleen Rowley were named Time magazine’s Persons of the Year 2002. Each of these women faced personal risks to reveal the wrongdoings at Enron, WorldCom, and the FBI, respectively. Although Sherron Watkins never really “blew” the whistle, she did write a letter to Ken Lay (then the CEO of Enron) that ultimately put into motion a series of events that led to the downfall of Enron. According to Time, “After nearly a decade at Enron she was high up enough, or grumpy enough, to send the boss a pull-no-punches, put-it-on-record letter telling him—for a very detailed seven pages—that his company was more or less a Ponzi scheme, and it sounds like she knew she wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know.” Yet, Sherron did not leave Enron or report her information to the SEC or the CPA firm that audited Enron’s financial statements.

Required:

Discuss the ethical situation faced by Sherron Watkins.