Question

Betty Vinson was the director of management reporting at WorldCom. She had worked there for five years when the fraud was uncovered and received two promotions during that time. Vinson’s salary increased from $50,000 when she started to $80,000 in 2002. Vinson reported to Buford Yates, director of general accounting, who reported to David Myers, senior vice president and controller, who then reported to CFO Scott Sullivan. (See Figure 1 for an organizational chart.) A hard worker who often stayed late or brought work home, Vinson considered herself lucky to land the job at WorldCom, as it was located in her hometown of Clinton, Miss. Vinson graduated from Mississippi College in 1978 and married her college sweetheart, Tom Vinson, a printing-equipment salesman who earned $40,000 a year. The couple had one daughter and lived a typical suburban lifestyle. Prior to working at WorldCom, Vinson worked as an accountant for various banking enterprises in Louisiana and Kansas City from 1978 to 1996. She also earned the Certified Public Accountant (CPA) credential during that time.

Problems began to emerge in the telecommunications industry in the late 1990s. The industry had over expanded, and every company was beginning to feel the effects, including WorldCom. By 2000, WorldCom’s expenses were increasing faster than revenues. In September 2000, WorldCom had to find $828 million to meet earnings targets expected by Wall Street. Vinson and her accounting colleagues found $50 million, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Senior management instructed her and her accounting coworkers to reduce reserve accounts for line costs to cover this shortfall. Reserves had been set aside based on estimates of potential losses, but they needed to have enough reason to reduce the reserve. Meeting earnings targets wasn’t a valid reason. Sullivan pressed Myers and Vinson’s boss, Yates, to make this adjustment. Yates told his accounting team that he had reservations, too, but that Sullivan promised this was a one-time adjustment. They all agreed to go along with the accounting adjustment. Vinson felt uncomfortable with this and considered resigning. The corporate accounting department’s discomfort with the entries prompted Sullivan to call the accountants into his office. He used an analogy that WorldCom was an aircraft carrier, and they needed to land the planes that were in the air. He urged them to wait until the planes had landed, and then they could leave the company if they still wanted to. Sullivan assured them that nothing they would do was illegal and that it wouldn’t be repeated. After talking to her husband, Vinson decided against resigning because of her family’s dependence on her salary and health insurance. In April 2001, the gap in meeting earnings targets was $771 million. The reserve pools weren’t large enough to cover this gap. Sullivan’s new strategy was to shift line costs, recorded as expenses, to capital expenditure accounts. Yates objected. Sullivan insisted it was the only way to cover this gap. Vinson and her coworker both felt cornered; this was clearly fraudulent accounting. The only choices now were to resign or make the entries. The three-person accounting team identified the capital accounts to use, and Vinson made the entries to transfer the $771 million. She backdated entries to February in the computer system and then indicated to colleagues at WorldCom that she was going to look for another job. These entries continued quarterly through April 2002. The Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) was informed of the problem in June 2002 as a result of the efforts of the WorldCom internal audit team. The SEC would ultimately charge CFO Scott Sullivan, Controller David Myers, and accountants Buford Yates, Troy Normand, and Betty Vinson. According to the SEC complaint: “At the direction of WorldCom senior management, Vinson and other WorldCom employees caused WorldCom to overstate materially its earnings in contravention of generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) for at least seven successive fiscal quarters, from as early as October 2000 through April 2002. Vinson knew or was reckless in not knowing, that these entries were made without supporting documentation, were not in conformity with GAAP, were not disclosed to the investing public, and were designed to allow WorldCom to appear to meet Wall Street analysts’ quarterly earnings estimates

Paraphrase one of Yates’ arguments?

This argument best describes the ____________________________________ “reason and rationalization” of GVV because?

In response to Mr. Yate’s argument, Betty and Troy could have countered?

Answer 1

Answer:-

Betty Vinson ought to have attempted to caution the administration that what was being done was unethical and the outcomes would be brutal. Knowing this, she ought to have recused herself from cooperation in such unethical acts disregarding any activity on her by the supervisors.

She had a decision of leaving yet she didn't. Rather, she decided to bargain with her morals due to her money related circumstance. In any event, when there was richly evident that fake things need to been done, it would have been astute to leave without even a second's pause itself as opposed to fudging records and afterward leaving. It would not have had any effect yet would have kept her from being a piece of deceitful exercises.

Preferably, betty ought to have blown the whistle and educated general society about false exercises or possibly the specialists of what was happening. This would have been ethical to do as such.

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