Wal-mart in Maryland

This article talks about Maryland's efforts to force Wal-mart to pay for health insurance for employees, and Wai-mart's political efforts to resist.

Energy Task Force Revelations

Last week when energy officials were asked before Congress about their role in the Vice President's 2001 Energy Task Force they denied any knowledge of being involved. A newly leaked document shows that this is untrue, and administration officials who knew better said nothing.

The energy officials were not under oath, but are still subject to fine and imprisonment if found to have lied to Congress.

Target and Prescriptions for Contraceptives

This article raises issues of the religious rights of pharmacists vs. the rights of customers:

Target allows its pharmacists at 1,150 stores to refuse to dispense emergency
contraception, also called Plan B, if it is against their religious beliefs.
That's OK, said Planned Parenthood officials, but they take issue with Target
for allowing its pharmacists to send customers someplace else to get the pills.
Instead, Target should follow the practices of some other national chains and
find a way to accommodate the pharmacist without inconveniencing or embarrassing the customer, said Jackie Payne, assistant director of government relations for
the Planned Parenthood Federation in Washington.

Farming Insurance Fraud

NPR ran this story today on farming insurance fraud. The interesting part for me is how the insurance industry lobbied to get a system in place in which the government bore most of the risk, and fraud was not discouraged

Corporations and Democracy

Post your comments on Corporations and Democracy here. . .

Corporations and Pensions

Here is an .mp3 link to an interesting discussion on corporations on their moral obligations in relation to pensions. (The show is Radio Times on WHYY in Philadelphia)

The truth, the partial truth...and Commerce Bank

In this article (free subscription required) a federal judge rules that CEO's can issue false, but vague pieces of puffery:

Corporate CEOs can falsify, exaggerate and withhold information from
investors without necessarily breaking the law, according to a ruling
yesterday by a federal judge in Camden.
"Regardless of its falsity, a misleading statement or omission is not actionable unless it is material," U.S. District Judge Robert B. Kugler ruled in throwing out shareholders' lawsuits against Commerce Bancorp Inc.
A group of investors sued Commerce last year, alleging that chairman Vernon Hill II had violated federal securities law when he failed to warn investors about a federal bribery investigation in Philadelphia that led to the indictment of two Commerce Bank of Pennsylvania executives.
. . .When do executives' statements cross the legal line? Only when "there is a substantial likelihood that a reasonable shareholder would consider [a statement] important in deciding how to act," Kugler ruled.
And what kind of corporate statements should a reasonable shareholder ignore? Kugler cited Hill's statement, in Commerce's year-end 2003 earnings report, that despite rising interest rates, "the unique Commerce business model continues to produce strong top-line revenue growth."
The shareholders argued that Hill broke the law when he made those
statements without revealing that Commerce's "business model" allegedly
relied on bribes of local officials.
But, Kugler ruled, no "reasonable" investor would have taken Hill's words at face value in the first place. "These remarks are exactly the sort of vague, general, optimistic commentary" that the federal courts' Philadelphia-based Third Circuit "has deemed immaterial puffery," he said.
In dismissing other shareholder claims yesterday, the judge added that "Commerce
Bank's slogan, 'America's Most Convenient Bank,' and its claim to a 'unique'
business model are simply too vague and subjective to influence reasonable
investors."
Kugler agreed with the shareholders (and disagreed with Commerce
attorneys) in ruling that, when deciding whether to report "unlawful practices"
- such as the bribery Commerce was accused of - it does not matter if there is
not much money involved. He said even "illegal payments that are so small as to
be relatively insignificant to the corporation's bottom line may endanger all of
a corporation's business if they are discovered."
Yet, Kugler added, it is unreasonable to expect a company to have to detail any financial "risks" that could result from misbehavior: "Even if a corporation is engaging in illegal practices, predictions of future events such as criminal indictments are too speculative" to project.
Summing up, Kugler wrote: "The risks inherent in Commerce Bank's unsustainable illegal business practices were too speculative to be material."

Next week's reading

The reading for Monday can be found here. It is a draft of the preface and introduction for my book Corporate Ethics in a Liberal Democracy.

Please post any comments or questions in this posting.