The article I found is about Wachovia Capital Markets LLC where the company’s research analysts issued biased coverage to help them acquire investment-banking business. Wachovia’s suspected fraud involved two instruments known as collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs (David S. Hilzenrath, 2011), which means that when Wachovia could not find a buyer the company would mark down the value of investments. Later Wachovia would try to sell the investments at a much higher rate to other companies, which, in return they would record, the transaction as a gain in their books. Below I will outline what unethical research behavior was involved, who were the injured parties, how has the unethical behavior affected the organization, the individual, and society, and how could the unethical behavior be avoided or resolved. After a 28 month investigation led by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) where their findings were that Wachovia Capital Markets cheated investors by charging inflated prices on securities tied to home mortgages (David S. Hilzenrath, 2011). Hefty penalties were handed down such as 22 million dollars in penalties along with pay 3 million dollars towards educating investors in spotting the wrong investments. Wachovia will also pay 25 million in settlement fees to the people that were cheated out of their money. After this incident happened, Wells Fargo has taken over the reins of Wachovia but the fines kept going, Wells Fargo agreed to pay more fines of almost 4.5 million dollars along with they had to give up gains that were acquired from the bad investments adding up to almost 7 million dollars. Patricia D. Struck, the association's president and the Wisconsin securities administrator, said in a press release that the settlement "is a positive step in our ongoing efforts to strengthen investor confidence and foster fairness in our capital markets." (Davis, 2006). Wachovia insists that the corporation did nothing wrong and they have policies to prevent issues like this from happening. I believe that they were guilty for two reasons; one because they were willing to pay the penalties so quick and number two there were documents and e-mails that could not be produce within the timeframe when this happened. The injured parties involved in this whole incident were the investors along with the Zuni Indian tribe because as the SEC states the lack of education and the complexity of some of the transactions. I believe with the proper regulations along with educating investors better would have prevented this whole incident. In a news conference Robert Khuzami, which, is the director of the SEC enforcement division stated, “Wachovia caused significant losses to the Zuni Indians and other investors by violating basic investor protection rules”. He also went on to say Don’t charge secret excessive markups, and don’t use stale prices when telling buyers that assets are priced at fair market value (David S. Hilzenrath, 2011). Therefore, by educating investors and other parties involved this incident may not have happed at all or maybe may not have gone on for so long. The incident hurt everyone involved along with society; I think the party that lost the most was Wachovia because they ultimately went out of business by selling to Wells Fargo. Before the sale, Wachovia was looked at as a business cheating companies out of their hard-earned money and nobody trusted them. Society looks at Wachovia the same way as investors because people in society trust companies like this with their money and to do the right thing and something like this happens and all that trust is gone. I think if Wells Fargo had not bought Wachovia, it would have been harder for them to recover because the trust of investors along with society is not there. I also think that this hurts other investment companies because investors and society will be hesitant after this incident happened and people are going to look into companies better just to make sure they can trust a company with their money. I believe over time the trust in companies like this will build but for now, the trust is not there and society needs to feel secure with handing over their money to large companies like Wachovia. In conclusion, what Wachovia did was morally and ethically wrong and the party that was hurt the most that was involved in the whole incident was Wachovia because after the incident investors, society, and other companies did not trust Wachovia to conduct business with them. Later they were bought out by Wells Fargo who also had to pay fines just to try to help resolve the matter to acquire the trust of investors and people in society. I think the main item in this article is that people and companies need to practice better ethics at the corporate level to ensure scandals like this one does not happen again.

References
Cooper, D,. & Schindler, P. (2011). Business Research Methods (11th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
David S. Hilzenrath. (2011, April 5). Wachovia cheated investors by inflating markups, SEC says. Retrieved December 12, 2012, from The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wachovia-cheated-investors-by-inflating-markups-sec-says/2011/04/05/AFTngykC_story.html
Davis, P. (2006, July 6). Wachovia Capital Markets Settlement. American Banker, 171(128), 19.