Posted Layla Alzahrani.

Embezzlement is money stolen by an unethical person. According to the article, 40 percent of small businesses in the United States will be targeted for average loss of $ 140,000,00.00, but embezzlement is only reported two percent of the time. Most of the embezzlers are trusted and long-term employees or family friends, or relatives. Victims’ trust usually is shattered after embezzlement happened, especially if embezzlers are their friends or relatives. According to forensic psychologists, victims have lack of judgment to discover the perpetrators before embezzlement happens.

It is difficult to discover employees who follow no pattern and offer no outward signs. Embezzlement sometimes is committed by people who do not have previous criminal records and and may have reputations beyond reproach. There are warning signs, however, that can show as evidence of employees’ behavior before the theft is uncovered, such as: enthusiastic employees who ask questions about business processes and procedures; employees who have excessive debt because of divorce or drug abuse; and employees who refuse to take time of their job, and who want to work when no one is around. Usually embezzlers have a hostile attitude if they get questioned about financial transaction.

Moreover, there are three factors must be present before a person can commit fraud; they are need, opportunity, and rationalization. Some examples of need are addiction to drugs, alcohol, and gambling. Rationalization appears when an employee believes that his/her illegal action fits within a personal code of conduct or ethic, which means that an embezzler steals because they see that as situational fraud. However, embezzlement can be discovered if accountants find amounts of expenses that are not consistent with historical norms or budget, documents are missing or incomplete, problems of bank reconciliations, and documents are adjusted without adequate support.

Preventing embezzlement can be difficult because there is no sure-fire method that can prevent it. Some examples that make it difficult to prevent fraud are issuing fictitious checks, invoking products that a company does not need it, issuing cashing checks for return products that not actually returned, forging checks and destroying them, and charging patients more than a duplicate invoice. There are some precautions that clients can take to prevent fraud such as doing an extensive background check before hiring an employee, tracking a person’s checks and verifying them, making bank deposits nightly, reconciling the bank and credit card statements, and requiring vacations. Those handing funds must be closely and routinely monitored in a company to insure that all profit within the practice and not in someone’s pocket.

Layla is a graduate accounting student with a concentration in forensic accounting at the Feliciano School of Business, Montclair State University.

Source:

Tranyor, Robert M. (2016) Embezzlement Could it Really Happen to You?, Audiology Today, Vol. 28. No. 4.

Posted by Dalton Soffer.

Erin Andrews, a sportscaster who has worked for ESPN and currently for FOX, was recently awarded $55 million by a Nashville jury for her civil lawsuit against a Nashville, Tennessee hotel owner and her stalker Michael David Barrett. In 2008 Barrett used a hacksaw to tamper with Andrews’ peephole and secretly video taped her while she was undressed. The video was later released on the internet, and it turned in to a nightmare for Andrews. Her privacy was taken from her and she was publicly humiliated after the video surfaced. Andrews gave an emotional testimony and sent out an emotional post on twitter saying the support she has received throughout the whole process has helped her fight to hold those accountable for whose job it is to protect everyone’s security, safety, and privacy.

Andrews originally sought $75 million in her suit however the court settled for $20 million less than that. The jury found the stalker, Barrett, was 51% at fault and was ordered to pay out $28 million, while the West End Hotel Partners, which owns and operates that Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University, was found to be 49 percent at fault and asked to pay out more than $26 million. The West End Hotel Partners has said that Barrett is solely responsible for his criminal actions.

In my opinion, I feel like the settlement amount was fair but I do not feel that it was properly divided between the guilty sides. Barrett was more at fault than 51%, I would say he was more like 75% at fault in this and should be ordered to pay more of the settlement.

Dalton is a business major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Posted by Dana Domenick.

A four year old boy was riding in his aunt’s 1999 Jeep Cherokee when it was rear-ended in 2012. He was killed when the SUV burst into flames. The gas tank on this Jeep Cherokee model is located behind the rear axle which means when the truck is hit from behind, it will likely trigger an explosion. The location of the gas tank is a major flaw in the truck and caused over 75 deaths. Fiat Chrysler took action on this issue in 2013, by recalling over 1.56 million Jeep Cherokees manufactured from 1993-1998 (Associated Press).

Judge J. Kevin Chason in Decatur County, Georgia ordered $40 million in damages to the child’s family. Three fourths of the damages were given to the family for his death while the other portion was given for pain and suffering. Fiat Chrysler requested a new trial, claiming that the jury acted irrationally and their prejudice tainted the verdict. Their motion was denied by the judge (Associated Press).

I agree with the court’s decision. The engineers who built these Jeeps should have had enough knowledge to place the car’s parts at locations in which they were protected. Extensive road testing should have been conducted on every vehicle to play out every possible collision scenario to ensure that the quality of the vehicle met the highest efficiency and safety standards. This death, as well as the many others caused by this issue, could have been prevented had Fiat Chrysler took their road testing more seriously and therefore, the verdict was correct.

Dana is a psychology major with a legal studies in business minor at Seton Hall University, Stillman School of Business (minor), Class of 2017.

The rivalry between Alphabet Inc.’s Waymo and Uber has intensified as Google’s parent sued Uber on grounds of patent infringement and trade secret misappropriation in February. Anthony Levandowski, a former employee of Google, has allegedly stolen 14,000 files worth of trade secrets to create his own self-driving truck company, Otto, acquired by Uber last year. Bloomberg Technology claims that the design and construction of the laser-scanning system to guide the autonomous cars took Waymo about seven years to build, while Uber supposedly accomplished the task in a mere nine months.

According to the suit, Mr. Levandowski allegedly registered the company Otto mid-January of last year and left Alphabet twelve days later, but not before downloading 9.7 gigabytes worth of classified information from Waymo’s design server. The suit further claims that he took the time to meticulously conceal his activities by attaching “an external hard drive to his laptop for eight hours, before erasing the history of his computer,” and never using it again. A few months after Mr. Levandowski left Alphabet and received his last compensation check, Otto was bought for $680 million in stock by Uber.

The article reveals that Anthony Levandowski is not the only former employee accused of stealing confidential data from Waymo’s self-driving car project, which has led to approximately $500 million for Otto employees. Waymo explains that Uber unfairly used this stolen information as a shortcut to create a strikingly similar laser sensor system to their own. When confronted with this complaint, Uber spokeswoman Chelsea Kohler claimed, “We take the allegations made against Otto and Uber employees seriously and we will review this matter carefully.” Despite this statement, Mr. Levandowski has been unavailable to comment.

Danielle is a finance and ITM major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Sources:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/alphabets-waymo-sues-uber-over-self-driving-car-secrets-1487894378

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-23/alphabet-s-waymo-sues-uber-for-stealing-self-driving-patents

Posted by Griffin Mehl.

Up until recently the idea of a self-driving car has simply been a dream. The whole concept surrounding the thought that a car could be capable of operating on its own was just too much for people to handle. However, over the past several years this notion has changed. People and companies have begun to invest a significant amount of time and money into the exploration and discovery of this technology. As can be imagined, this idea has become less futuristic and more realistic a rivalry has begun to develop between companies trying to create these cars. As can be inferred from the article, two of the big names that have made a statement in this field are both Alphabet (“an American multinational conglomerate founded on October 2, 2015 by the two founders of Google”-Wikipedia) and Uber (“ transportation network company headquartered in San Francisco” –Wikipedia). In fact these companies are currently involved in a lawsuit. A vital person involved in this whole ordeal is “Anthony Levandowski, an engineer who left Waymo and launched self-driving truck company Otto.” For those of you who don’t know Waymo is simply “Google’s self-driving car company.”

As can be gathered from the article, there is currently an issue that has risen between Uber and Alphabet. More specifically Waymo is the one who “brought a lawsuit against the embattled ride-hailing service, alleging that Uber stole the proprietary design of a system built in its vehicles.” This all stems back to Mr. Lavandowski the engineer who used to work at Waymo. While he was under employment there, he decided to download a trove of data and self-driving technology onto his personal computer. This was done that way he could work from anywhere and wouldn’t have to be in the office to access this vital information/technology/drawings/specs for self-driving cars. After working with Waymo for a stint of time Lavandowski decided to split and create his own company “Otto” as I mentioned before. After this divide “Waymo alleged that Levandowski used that information to build his company.” All this would have been missed had it not been for a simple erroneous email that a Waymo employee received. In that email a Vendor thought he was reaching out to Uber, but instead he was mistakenly reaching out to Waymo. The email contained “specs for Otto’s circuit board technology — a central system for the self-driving vehicles — that Waymo alleges looks very similar to the tech it’s developing”. Basically, what Waymo was able to realize was that “Otto” (and the man behind it) which is now under contract by Uber had been using information and technology that was initially created by Waymo.

So, what can be taken away from this? First, if you or even the company you are a part of is working with patented information and critical data (like Waymo was) it is important to make the procedures for sharing that information known. It is very hard to blame someone for violating a procedure if they are not well informed about the rules in the first place. Second, if you or the company you are a part of deal with sensitive materials there are many preventive steps that can be taken in order to avoid that information from getting into others hands. An example of this would be a nondisclosure agreement. By signing one of these, it makes it clear that people who are in contact with classified information know they cannot share that information with anyone else. Finally, the most basic point is to make sure you are sending your messages/emails to the right people. I can’t tell you how many times I have mistakenly sent an email to the wrong person. If there is some classified information in your email that you wouldn’t want anyone but your intended audience to see it wouldn’t hurt to check who it’s going to twice.

Sources:

“Alphabet Inc.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 27 Mar. 2017. Web. 31 Mar. 2017.

“Uber (company).” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 29 Mar. 2017. Web. 31 Mar. 2017.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/290792

Griffin is a finance major with a minor in accounting and certificate in entrepreneurial studies at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Posted by Charles Matta.

UPS (or United Parcel Service) is known worldwide as the world’s largest package delivery company and provider of supply chain management solutions. There is no questioning the success that this company has had, but is there a question of their morality? Recently, UPS was supposed to be looking for clues and observing its trucks thoroughly for illegal transportation of products. It was found that UPS had been illegally transporting untaxed cigarettes from Indian reservations to customers throughout the state of New York. And while they were supposedly “observing the trucks” it was in fact believed that they had “turned a blind eye” and now the tax regulators of the state of New York are asking for the judge to impose an 873 million dollar penalty.

An eight day federal civil trial occurred with closings statements regarding the issue saying that UPS “had a corporate culture that favored sales opportunities over a responsibility to help New York enforce tax law.” The article states that this happened because: “Tobacco retailers located on upstate reservations were given price discounts for shipping in volume. Delivery drivers were allowed to accept iPads and other gifts from shippers. Account executives, whose compensation was tied to keeping big accounts, ignored signs that some customers signing delivery contracts dealt in cigarettes.” The lawyers of New York City and New York State are saying that UPS must be held accountable for what they determine to be about a decade’s worth of misconduct.

On the other hand, UPS has argued that it did follow the rules and restrictions applied to the company, but they can only do so much about policing its 1.6 million daily shippers are sending in sealed packages. In its legal filings, its lawyers said the city and state have offered no proof it “knew or consciously avoided knowing that any shipper was shipping cigarettes.” Now, UPS has terminated contracts with shippers who were known to be violating these packaging rules. “The state and city impose some of the highest taxes on cigarettes in the country in an effort to halt tobacco use,” and because of this, there are 28,000 deaths annually which causes tax payers 10.4 billion in health care related costs. One account executive writes “’I wish UPS would just take the high road, and say NO TOBACCO, NO ACHOHOL (sic), PERIOD.” UPS needs to be more strict on what is or isn’t successful and must find a way to monitor their business operations better.

Charles is a finance and marketing major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Posted by Joe Casey.

In the business world the line to remain ethical and make profit is thin. In the recent months Samsung has toed the line with the ethical standards of business due to their latest smartphone repeatedly catching fire all throughout the world. Samsung acting as swiftly as possible called for a quick recall of 2.5 million units of this phone however, the recall has gone anything but quick.

While Samsung seemed to be gaining ground on Apple in the smartphone business, they have produced their newest phone the Samsung Galaxy Note 7; the issue that has risen is that these phones are beyond unsafe and yet people still seem to be using them even after the initial recall. Due to the recall, Samsung has seemingly alleviated the possibility to be liable for any lawsuits that will come after the recall has been issued but the harm that was done prior to the recall has in estimate, “further dented Samsung’s reputation and shaved as much as $14 billion off its market value” (Times).  One of the many issues that face Samsung is that it seems they have wavered from government recall protocol and instead are trying to “save face” by venturing out on their own and advertising to bring the devices back for a change of battery when the issue is much more complex. The first recall while slow had seemed to stop the issue of their exploding phone as soon as October 1st.

Five days had passed since the recall seemed to fully become effective, until October 6^th when the first report of a replacement phone being defective hits the news. This stream picks back up and again Samsung is forced to stop producing the phone all together making it the largest smart phone recall to date. Finally, on October 11^th “Samsung announces it is stopping all sales of the phone while it investigates the problems.”(BBC). While Samsung at first was able to stay ethical, they decided to find an immediate solution due to the money they would lose and are now dealing with a larger problem all together.

This hit is only the beginning in the repercussions after this will be seen further in the court system yet their ethical standing to act as quickly as possible even though it went against the governments wishes on how to handle the recall was best for their business. Instead of staying unethical and ignoring the problem they chose to deal with it head on.

Joe is a sports management major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-37615496

Posted by Dalton Soffer.

Erin Andrews, a sportscaster who has worked for ESPN and currently for FOX, was recently awarded $55 million by a Nashville jury for her civil lawsuit against a Nashville, Tennessee hotel owner and her stalker Michael David Barrett. In 2008 Barrett used a hacksaw to tamper with Andrews’ peephole and secretly video taped her while she was undressed. The video was later released on the internet, and it turned in to a nightmare for Andrews. Her privacy was taken from her and she was publicly humiliated after the video surfaced. Andrews gave an emotional testimony and sent out an emotional post on twitter saying the support she has received throughout the whole process has helped her fight to hold those accountable for whose job it is to protect everyone’s security, safety, and privacy.

Andrews originally sought $75 million in her suit however the court settled for $20 million less than that. The jury found the stalker, Barrett, was 51% at fault and was ordered to pay out $28 million, while the West End Hotel Partners, which owns and operates that Nashville Marriott at Vanderbilt University, was found to be 49 percent at fault and asked to pay out more than $26 million. The West End Hotel Partners has said that Barrett is solely responsible for his criminal actions.

In my opinion, I feel like the settlement amount was fair but I do not feel that it was properly divided between the guilty sides. Barrett was more at fault than 51%, I would say he was more like 75% at fault in this and should be ordered to pay more of the settlement.

Dalton is a business major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Posted by Michael Larkin.

When one checks into a hotel, one would expect to have their information stored in a company’s database, but one would not expect that database to get compromised. Wyndham Worldwide Corporation was using a property management system that stored customer’s names, addresses, and credit card number. On three separate occasions in 2008 and 2009, Wyndham was hacked and this information was pulled off of over 600,000 accounts. Damage was approximately $10.6 million and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) brought Wyndham to trial.

Even though Wyndham was the company that got hacked, it was the customers who got hurt and that is why the FTC filed against Wyndham. The FTC argued that the hacks were caused due the very limited security that the management system used. It was found that the credit card numbers could easily be read, passwords were easy to guess, and a firewall was not deployed along with various other issues. Wyndham argued that the FTC had no right to file a suit against them and that the unfairness and deception claims were not sufficiently validated. It was founded that Wyndham didn’t provide a fair system for its customers and the court required the company to change in order to protect its customers. Mainly, Wyndham needs a more comprehensive security program in order to protect account information and also conduct annual information security audits and maintain a safeguard for its servers.

This case was a matter of protection and privacy for the company’s customers. A customer is providing personal information in order to engage in business so Wyndham has a duty to protect that information. Having a higher security will ensure that hackers will not be able to breach the system and steal information. The FTC won the trial, and in doing so, made sure that a company had a high security to protect the customers.

Michael is a finance major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Sources:

FTC v. Wyndham Worldwide Corp.

Verdict From: https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2015/12/wyndham-settles-ftc-charges-it-unfairly-placed-consumers-payment

Posted by Victoria Gencarelli.

Product liability is a prevailing issue and concern for companies and businesses who are marketing and selling their products. It is a company’s duty to take the liability for manufacturing and selling a product that is defective or damaged. By creating and issuing a defective product to the public, it increases the risk for dangers, damages, or harmful occurrences to take place with the use of the product. If in the case that a product is defective and capable of any danger, it is the company’s responsibility to issue a warning or a recall on the product. In this way they can they attempt to protect themselves from any legal issues and also protect the general public from encountering danger while using their products.

POM Wonderful is a company who produces fruit juices and fruit extracts, but is most commonly known for the produce of pomegranate juice. The Coca-Cola Company introduced a new “pomegranate blueberry” juice product, but POM wonderful believed the product to be false advertising to consumers. The juice was actually a blend together of apple and grape juices and only consisted of 0.2% pomegranate juice in it and also included the phrase “from concentrate with added ingredients and other flavors” in small typing. POM Wonderful presented this to the court in compliance with the Lanham Act because they believed that the name of the juice and the false advertising of the Coca-Cola Company’s “pomegranate blueberry” juice was misleading and contributing to a loss of sales for POM Wonderful.

In California federal district court, they deliberated the case and had not found POM successful in proving that the Coca-Cola Company was misleading their consumers into thinking that their “Enhanced Pomegranate Blueberry Flavored 100% Juice Blend” did not actually contain a high percentage of pomegranate juice. When the case reached the highest court, they disregarded POM Wonderful’s claim against the Coca-Cola Company and stating that Coca-Cola was not violating the FDA guidelines on product labeling. The POM Wonderful Company did lose out on millions of dollars in revenue and sales, but it was not seen as unfair competition and the jury ended the case in favor of the Coca-Cola Company. All in all, an issue such as this one has an overall impact on the food industry to be careful when labeling, marketing, and advertising their products to the public. It is always important to keep product liability in mind when generating products and selling them in order to avoid any potential problems in the long run.

Victoria is an accounting and finance major at the Stillman School of Business, Seton Hall University, Class of 2019.

Fox News’ Harris Faulkner, co-anchor of the daytime show Outnumbered, sued Hasbro toy company for $5 million. Hasbro sold a toy hamster named the “Harris Faulkner Hamster Doll” as part of their “Littlest Pet Shop” product line.

In the complaint, Faulkner alleges unfair competition under the Lanham Act and common law violation of right to publicity. She claimed she is “distressed” that her name would be associated with a toy that indicates it could be a potential “choking hazard” to children, and that portraying her as a rodent is demeaning and insulting.

She further claimed that since as a journalist she cannot be connected with a commercial product, “Hasbro’s use of her name in association with the Harris Faulkner Hamster Doll creates the false impression that Faulkner would impugn her own professional ethics by agreeing to have a commercial product named after her.”

Both sides of the political isle are pressuring the Fed to be more transparent regarding its monetary policy and cease “cozying up” to the banks it oversees. There are several legislative proposals that some prior Presidents of the Fed consider to be a threat to its independence. If any one of them are passed, it would be the first major overhaul of the institution since the Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act of 1978.

Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby is concerned with the Fed’s portfolio, because since 2008 the Fed more than quadrupled its balance sheet to $4.5 trillion. It purchased bonds to suppress longer-term interest rates, but Shelby is at a loss to discover as to what the Fed is going to do with them.

Sen. Rand Paul, along with 29 other Republican Senators, the Majority Leader, and one Democrat, is sponsoring a bill requiring the Fed to be subject to “regular audits” of its monetary policy by the General Accounting Office (GAO). Paul reasoned it is “‘unseemly that an organization that we’ve given the power, the monopoly, of making money uses that power then to try to thwart transparency.’”

Representative Bill Huizenga of Michigan, head of the House Financial Services panel’s subcommittee on monetary policy, wants to require the Fed to use a mathematical rule when it changes interest rates. New Jersey Republican Representative Scott Garrett has introduced a bill entitled, the “Federal Reserve Transparency and Accountability Act” that “would require the central bank to perform a cost-benefit analysis of any new banking rule, submit internal audits and performance reviews to Congress and send a top official to testify before lawmakers on financial rule-making.”

There is at least some change to the selection of governors. Current law now requires at least one member of the seven-member Board of Governors to have community banking experience. It brings experience other than the traditional “academic” or “megabank” experience, as the proponent of the original bill, Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, described. Individual governors on Fed’s Board of Governors are required to be confirmed by the Senate. The Board of Governors makes important decisions on interest rates and how banks are regulated. But specific expertise in banking is not a requirement for any of the positions. “Of the board’s current five members, three are economists and two are lawyers.” The addition of a governor with community banking experience, however, lends more diversity in the decision-making process.

The New York branch has been the target of Democrats, in particular Sen. Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts. She has been critical of the current president, William C. Dudley, of being too chummy with big banks. Warren wants more congressional oversight of the central bank. Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island suggests that selection of the New York Fed president should be confirmed by the Senate and has proposed a bill requiring it. Currently, the bank’s directors select the twelve district bank presidents who are then sent on for approval by the Fed board located in Washington.

A lot of criticism surrounds the amount of power the president of the New York branch has over policy set by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The president of the New York bank is the only president that does not have to rotate on the committee. Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher called for the “stripping” of the New York president’s permanent role on the FOMC, because the New York branch wields too much power and influence. The Independent Community Bankers of America, a Washington lobby consisting of 6,500 members, agree.

Both Democrats and Republicans want a more accountable Fed, but there are detractors who believe that legislation would only have the effect of politicizing the central bank. In one poll, 24% of Americans polled believe that politics should stay out of the Fed.