Business Ethics and Law (Case Study Sample)

Business Ethics
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Institution Affiliation
Business Ethics
Business ethics implies following appropriate business practices and policies. The ethics involve controversial subjects like trade secrets, patents, insider trading, associated press, and copyright. These issues are guided by the law and offer a foundation for businesses to get public approval and legal authority to operate in the market.
Q 1: Trade Secrets
As a co-executive of PepsiCo, I would forward the Dimson’s letter to the executives of Coca-Cola. This would be followed by raising an alarm of the intended theft of intellectual property. Although Pepsi and Coca-Cola are competitors in the market, the two companies are governed by the ethics of fair and legal competition. Failure to raise the alarm would amount to complying with Dimson’s intentions, which could have severe implications for Pepsi concerning the stolen intellectual property. The infringement can open the business to lawsuits and possible financial and reputational damages (Uzialko, 2019). The involved individuals can face criminal charges and even jail terms.
Q2: Evaluating Trade Secrets
The mobility of employees has unique challenges to trade secret information. The problems can advance to costly issues and, therefore, employers are obliged to avert their occurrences by laying a foundation for protecting the trade secrets. This can be done by requesting employees to sign documents of confidentiality agreements. These documents should demonstrate that an organization has the right to maintain its confidentiality of proprietary information and secrets. It should also articulate the expected means of preserving the secrets of an organization during and after their employment contracts. Such an agreement can prohibit employees from disclosing confidential information during and after their employment. This approach makes them free to pursue alternative employment even if they have trade secrets of their current employers.
Q3: Associated Press
The electronic media is taking advantage of the print media on news and stories. Some electronic media platforms copy content from the print media, arguing that anyone has freedom of speech. In such situations, original authors of the contents are disregarded and do not gain from their work. The electronic media may take advantage of the lack of physical copyright in a piece of work, which allows artists to take legal actions against the parties that violate the copyright regulations (Moraes, 2019). Therefore, the argument is phrased that an entity cannot be sued for copyright infringement unless it is registered. However, copyright is automatic, and it becomes effective when any creative work is put in