1. The Senate recently released a report on wrongdoing at JP Morgan Chase. It found that bank executives lied to investors and the public. Also, traders, with the knowledge of top management, changed risk limits to facilitate more trading and then violated even these higher limits. Executives revalued the bank’s investment portfolio to reduce apparent losses. JP Morgan’s internal investigation failed to find this wrongdoing. Into what ethics traps did these JP Morgan employees fall? What options did the executives and traders have for dealing with this wrongdoing?

1. The Senate recently released a report on wrongdoing at JP Morgan Chase. It found that bank executives lied to investors and the public. Also, traders, with the knowledge of top management, changed risk limits to facilitate more trading and then violated even these higher limits. Executives revalued the bank’s investment portfolio to reduce apparent losses. JP Morgan’s internal investigation failed to find this wrongdoing. Into what ethics traps did these JP Morgan employees fall? What options did the executives and traders have for dealing with this wrongdoing?

2. Located in Bath, Maine, Bath Iron Works builds high tech warships for the Navy. Winning Navy contracts is crucial to the company’s success—it means jobs for the community and profits for the shareholders. Navy officials held a meeting at Bath’s offices with its executives and those of a competitor to review the specs for an upcoming bid. Both companies desperately wanted to win the contract. After the meeting, a Bath worker realized that one of the Navy officials had left a folder on a chair labeled: “Business Sensitive.” It contained information about the competitors’ bid that would be a huge advantage to Bath. William Haggett, the Bath CEO, was notified about the file just as he was walking out the door to give a luncheon speech. What should he do? What pitfalls did he face? What result if he considered Mill, Kant, or the Front Page test?

3. A group of medical schools conducted a study on very premature babies—those born between 24 and 27 weeks of gestation (instead of the normal 40 weeks). These children face a high risk of blindness and death. The goal of the study was to determine which level of oxygen in a baby’s incubator produced the best results. Before enrolling families in the study, the investigators did not tell them that being in the study could increase their child’s risk of blindness or death. The study made some important discoveries: the level at which too much oxygen increased the risk of blindness and level at which too little increased the risk of death. What would Mill and Kant say about this decision not to tell the families?

4. Because Raina processes payroll at her company, she knows how much everyone earns, including the top executives. This information could make for some good gossip, but she has kept it all completely secret. She just found out, however, that her boss knew that it is against company policy for her to do payroll for C-level employees. Yesterday, the CEO went to her boss to confirm that he, the boss, was personally doing the processing for top management. Her boss lied to the CEO and said that he was. Then he begged Raina not to tell the truth if the CEO checked with her. Raina just got a message that the CEO wants to see her. What does she say if he asks about the payroll?