Sir, – Clifford Coonan's article on former Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow's account of how he went wrong and ended up serving time in prison for fraud makes revealing reading ("You can follow all the rules and still commit fraud at the same time", January 6th).
Mr Fastow regrets not recognising the essential connection between following the rules while also upholding the principles on which the rules are based.
He believed that as long as he could find a loophole in the rules, this was all that mattered, even if, as he says, he “undermined every principle possible”. He says he never gave a thought to ethics in carrying out transactions, and that in the business world it is “a lot harder to recognise unethical situations than you think”.
It is perhaps not surprising to us in Ireland that his business transactions were not informed by ethics. His account shows the need for business education to include the philosophical and social basis of ethical principles and values and their relation to business rules and practices. This would help ensure that they are seen to have weight and not seen as pious platitudes to be easily set aside when convenient, or flouted in spirit in favour of the letter of the rule. Investment in such education would help improve ethical practice in business and likely save the State millions in the years ahead, as well as avoiding damage to people’s financial and psychological wellbeing. – Yours, etc,
MANUS CHARLETON,
Drum Cross, Sligo.