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The Price of Unethical Behavior

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The Price of Unethical Behavior
The Price of Unethical Behavior
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate unethical behavior of Tyco International executives and chairman by briefly summarizing the company’s historical scenario, the spending habits and loans made for those executives, the resulting outcome of the events, the punishment handed down from indictments and whether it was justified.

In 1975 Dennis Kozlowski joined Tyco International and in 1992 was named the chairman and chief executive. Through the late 1990s, Kozlowski facilitated Tyco’s expansion. During Kozlowski’s last three years with Tyco he made at least $300 million and was noted as being one of the highest paid executives in the United States. During his tenure at Tyco Kozlowski acquired almost $500 million along with a $31 million dollar New York apartment and several rare paintings, which came under scrutiny by both federal prosecutors and the company.
With Kozlowski as chief executive officer he made Tyco into a giant conglomerate mainly through acquisitions. Tyco has two major segments; fire protection systems and security systems is incorporated in Switzerland and has operational headquarters in Princeton, New Jersey. At its peak, Tyco had a market value over $100 billion.

In 2002 Kozlowski left Tyco over a issue regarding the misuse of company funds and his hefty compensation package. Shortly after leaving Tyco, Kozlowski was indicted on charges of evading more than $1 million of sales taxes on six paintings that he purchased.

There were other controversial issues concerning his involvement in criminal activities associated with his finances, evading sales tax, falsifying company records and tampering with physical evidence during the investigation. While Kozlowski pleaded his innocence the prosecution argued that he evaded taxes and falsified evidence to hide the

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