(NEW YORK) The research-based ranking ethics thinktank, The Ethisphere Institute, announced today that it plans to complement its highly-regarded annual World’s Most Ethical Companies™ with a sister efforts in “World’s Least Ethical Companies” and “World’s Most Kinda Ethical™” ranking lists. Reaction was swift from the ethics, compliance and governance communities. Professor Ester Bonne from the [...]

What started off as a media dream story (with the words “Rupert Murdoch,” “employs” and “hacker” all in the same headline) ended on a very anticlimactic, and somewhat humorous, note. Readers might remember the DISH Network lawsuit that hoped to receive nearly $1 billion in damages from

More proof that price-fixing can take place in any industry: the owner of Adult Fire, an Australian company that puts on various X-rated strip shows for men and women, sued two of its Sydney rivals, Bombshells and Sex Bomb Promotions, for price-fixing. Sadly for Adult Fire the case was “quickly dismissed” after Bombshells and Sex [...]

Thanks to a settlement announced last Thursday, 3M Company will have to change the labels of their tape products and pony up nearly $700,000 for allegedly misrepresenting the physical dimensions of their tape by six percent. 3M was accused of mislabeling its products by Fresno, California’s Division of Measure Standards, which brought suit against

Indiana resident James M. DiBlasio woke up to more than a hangover the morning after a three-day drinking binge. At some point during the 72 hours that he was drunk he managed to hack into the Denver-based server of his employer, Ski.com, and change various data such as flight reservations and contact information. According to [...]

One day you’re labeled the “best health-insurance chief financial officer for each of the past four years” by Institutional Investor, the next you’re frantically texting “ABORT!!” to one of your many girlfriends/fiancees, hoping that your double life isn’t discovered. Such is the life of ex-Wellpoint CFO David Colby. Colby allegedly carried on relationships with over [...]

For several years, Ernesto Tapanes was a simple, ordinary “oceanography survey consultant,” doing contracting work for the treasure-hunting firm Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. One spring day in 2007, however, his life abruptly changed when he discovered an anomaly off the coast of Gibraltar. Upon further investigation, it turned out to be a sunken

Stop the presses! Al Gore, the Sierra Club, and environmentalists everywhere are going to need to find a new hobby because global warming has just been stopped. Limousine Eighteen, the international “ground transportation company,” has purchased one hybrid SUV for their fleet of ground vehicles. This was revealed to the world in the form of [...]

Although this story is unique in and of itself, more interesting is what it brought to light: there are actually federal guidelines in place for what constitutes a “stew.” The USDA outlines the official government recipe for beef stew with language that seems better suited for a Monty Python sketch. “The beef stew shall contain [...]

Okay, we love this story. Corruption is rampant in Sweden as police officer demands fruitcake in exchange for solving case of the missing trombone! Ethisphere readers know all about the pervasive problems of bribery and corruption in hotspots around the world such as China (bad), Russia (badder) and Nigeria (baddest).  But who would have known [...]

After investigating a former Enron employee’s high profile whistle-blower story, USA Today discovered she’s not everything she claims to be.

In a 93-page ruling last week a federal judge threw out an Oklahoma state law forcing companies to allow employees to bring guns to work.

A disturbing, underground pastime among Canadian teens was uncovered on Tuesday after a 14-year-old boy was admitted to a hospital for first-, second- and third-degree burns. What is the new hobby? Covering various objects in body spray, particularly Axe and Tag brands, and lighting them on fire.

Mesa Air Group said on Tuesday that CFO Peter Murnane wasn’t deleting important company data when he used special file-erasing software on his three computers. Rather, he was trying to get rid of pornographic material he had collected on the job.

Church & Dwight Co., Inc., parent company of the Nair line of products, unveiled a new hair removal product earlier this year aimed at 10 to 15 year olds. The product is called Nair Pretty and has been advertised in magazines such as CosmoGirl and Seventeen in order to reach “first-time hair removers.” The company [...]

A Michigan forensics scientist is being investigated after she admitted to using state equipment in order to search her husband’s underwear for another woman’s DNA. Ann Chamberlain-Gordon admitted during a March 7th divorce hearing that she used expired chemicals during her free time to conduct the tests, and that the results confirmed the presence of [...]

As reported by local Denver media, Colorado’s top federal judge likes to party. Now the FBI is involved, and so are allegations of violations of the Judicial Code of Conduct. Without getting into the sordid details, recently filed court documents show Colorado’s top federal judge, Judge Edward Nottingham, was too drunk to remember how he [...]

It’s really hard to close the barn door AFTER the cow has left, but that is what the FTC is trying to do. The Federal Trade Commission accidentally disclosed confidential trade secrets of Whole Foods yesterday in a court filing. At issue was that in trying to protect competitive secrets, court officials didn’t sufficiently “black [...]

After months of closed-door negotiating, pharma giant Johnson & Johnson filed a lawsuit Wednesday against The American Red Cross claiming that the Red Cross violated trademark laws by using the red cross symbol on certain commercial products. Although the American Red Cross was created in 1881, while Johnson & Johnson started using the trademark in [...]

A Long Island man pleaded guilty on Wednesday of conspiring to destroy a rival company’s product. Robert A. Schetty, III, 42, a vice president of Technic, Inc., coordinated an attempt to place hydrogen peroxide in a bath of chemicals used by rival company Rohm and Haas, Co. to test their new electroplating solution. Technic sells [...]

We are filing this one under the category of “Careful Communications” as the Pakistani government is reporting that five people were killed in Kararchi several days ago as a direct consequence of falling billboards in the city which collapsed due to strong winds… Police confirmed the deaths which were caused when at least twenty billboards [...]

We’ve all heard stories of attorneys that charge an arm and a leg (and possibly your first-born) for their services. But N.C. Superior Court Judge Ben Tennille was less than forgiving in his recent criticism of a Sears class action settlement in which attorneys collected almost 400 times the amount that the plaintiffs received. Tennille [...]

According to Belgian newspaper De Standaard, a Belgian businessman has blamed his discriminatory hiring practices on his dog, claiming that his dog was racist and would bite non-whites. The 53-year-old Nigerian man told De Standaard he arrived at the Belgian’s wrought-iron business and was immediately confronted by the barking dog. The Belgian turned the man [...]

Hollywood must just go mining in the halls of California’s government political bureaucracy for some of its ideas. The state’s Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board (*yawn, we can barely stay awake*) is being sued by Claire Connelly, a former secretary who alleges that the board’s Chairwoman insisted she be a surrogate mother for the Chair’s baby, [...]

As reported in the Associated Press, a Honda car dealership in New Mexico is in trouble after hiring a direct-mail marketing company which sent out 50,000 scratch-off tickets to local residents as part of a promotion. One of the 50,000 tickets was supposed to be a $1,000 grand prize winner. The problem? A typo and [...]