Dave McDonald was sitting in the outer office waiting to see Stan Hope, the purchasing agent for strait Structured Steel, a new account that had just begun operations in a coastal location about 65 kilometers (40 miles) from the nearest city. Stan had telephoned Dave the previous week with an urgent request for four large exhaust fans that were required to remove fumes from enclosed spaces were welders were at work. The union had threatened to stop the project unless working conditions were improved. Although Dave didn't sell fans at the time, he found a line of fans and negotiated a discount from the manufacturer, along with an agreement to discuss the further possibility of representing the fan manufacturer on a national basis. When Stan gave the order to Dave for the fans, the two men discussed other products that Dave sold. Dave sold products for a company that was both a general-line and specialty-line industrial distributor. Included in the general-line products were such items as hand and power tools, cutting tools (e.g, drills, taps, dies), safety equipment, wire rope and slings, fasteners (e.g., stainless steel, bronze, and carbon steel flanges, elbows, tees). Included in the specialty-line products were such items as electric motors and generators, motor controls, hydraulic and pneumatic valves and cylinders, rubber dock fenders, and overhead cranes. When the men finally met, they were almost instantly friends, and it was obvious that the opportunities for them to do further business were great. "One item that really interests me," said Stan, "is PTFE tape. We need some and we will be using a lot of it." "We have the largest stock of PTFE tape in the country," replied Dave. "We import it directly from Italy. It's high quality and the same standard size as all others on the market: ½ inch wide, 0.003 inch thick, and 480 inches long, how much are you interested in?". "Let's start with 400 rolls," Stan suggested. PTFE tape was a white, non-adhesive tape used as a pipe thread sealant. It was wrapped around the threads of pipe or fittings before they were screwed together to make a leak-proof seal. The tape first came on the market in the late 1960s at price as high as $3.60 per roll but, since then, prices had dropped considerably. North American manufacturers were still selling the tape for list prices near $1.80 and were offering dealer discounts between 25 and 50 percent depending on the quantities that dealers bought. Dave was importing the tape from Italy at a landed cost of $0.17 per roll. 

Ouestions

1- What are the ethical issues? 

2- What are the relevant facts? 

3- Who are the parties primarily affected? 

4- What alternatives actions can be considered? 

5- What are the ethics of the alternatives?

 6- What are the practical constraints? 

7- What actions should be taken?