CORE PROBLEM OF CASE UNETHICAL ISSUES RELATED TO BREAST-FEEDING REGULATIONS in India and in many other countries, aggressive marketing

of breast milk substitutes by commercial interests triggered campaigns for promotion of commercial interests triggered campaigns for promotion of breast feeding. the promotion of breast milk substitutes by medical professionals challenged traditional breast feeding practices. The baby food industry very cleverly sought to promote its products through health-care facilities. in India , in wake of global developments with regard to the promotion of breast-feeding, the infant milk foods and feeding bottles bill was passed in the Lok Sabha in 1989. In 1992, the infant milk substitutes, feeding bottles and infant foods (Regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) act was finally passed. It came into force from 1 August 1993. The Act expressly prohibits: distribution of free samples of infant milk foods and feeding bottles to mothers; advertising to public; promotion in health care facilities; distribution of gifts or samples to health workers; promotion of words and pictures that idealize bottle feeding; advice to mothers by company sales staff; financial assistance to health organizations or associations of doctors to organize conferences, seminars, and so on; and Incentives to sales personnel/ retailers based on volume of sales. And Indian govt. has authorized four voluntary organizations to monitor the Act. These are the Central Social Welfare Board, the Indian Council forChild Welfare, the Association for Commerce for Consumers Action onSafety and Health .and Breast-feeding Promotion Network of India (BPNI). However, Wockhardt ltd, in spite of the 1992 regulation went on to distribute free samples, according to the study conducted by UNICEFACASH. The study

revealed that the incidence of free samples prevailed all over India- it was highest in the countrys capital, New Delhi. Seventy two percent of the free samples were given by Nestle, twenty four percent Dalmia Dairy, 19% Wockhardt and 18% by Raptokos Brett, VICTIMAZATION OF EMPLOYEES ON 8 May 2003 more than 75000 medical representatives from all over India participated in a 50-day relay strike in Kerala under the aegis of the Federation of Medical and Sales Representatives Associations of India (FMRAI) protesting against the unethical policies of pharmaceutical companies which (1) denied the fundamental trade union rights of the members; (2) pursued policies that treated sales promotion employees as vendible commodities and resorted to hire and fire and (3) increased the work-load on employees. However, it was found that Wockhardt Ltd has dismissed more than 77 medical representatives because of declining sales. it had also affected large number of transfers of sales promotion employees for the same reason. The Wockhardt management with a view to pre-empting the strike , issued an office order on 6 February 2003. It made it known that the management would not in any way have any truck with the FMRAIs call by an employee would be considered an undisciplined act and appropriate action would be taken against such employee. LACK OF SECURITY OF SERVICE TO WORKERS Wockhardt Ltd has been increasingly pressing the employees, particularly the field workers. On the one hand, field workers are being thrown out of regular employment with impunity while, on the other hand, casualization of field workers is on the rise, accompanied by low wages as well as poor working and service conditions. UNETHICAL SALES PRACTICES Apart from indulging in violation of basic trade union rights of employees, Wockhardt management also victimized the companys field workers, who had to face medical practitioners, traders and the general public, when the

company resorted to several unethical trade practices. In this regard FMRAI wrote a letter to the company chairman and requested his personal attention in the matter of unfair sales and marketing practices indulged by the management. But the management resorted to derecognition of the union. PROMOTING HEALTH CARE SYSTEM THROUGH IMPROPERLY LABELLED SAMPLES Infant food samples should conform to labeling requirements and every infant food should comply with section 6 and rule 7 and 8 of the 1992 Act. However Wockhardt distributes free samples of Dexrice to doctors promoting it as delicious weaning food with enriched vitamins. Even though free samples of infant foods are permitted by law, samples packs of Dexrice, an infant food from Wockhardt do not conform to labeling requirements. HARASSING COMPETITORS IN MATTERS OF CLINICAL TRIALS A non-existent NGO linked to a senior Wockhardt executive attempted to use the public interest litigation route in the Supreme Court to derail the launch of insulin by its rival, Biocon, and has focused the publics attention on the business of clinical trials. ANALYSIS AND INFERENCES After identifying the problem we analyzed that Wockhardt Ltd have involved itself in so many unethical practices. However they very well familiar with the Infant Milk Substitutes, Feeding Bottles and Infant Foods (regulation of Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, they distributed free samples. They should stop this. They have refused to recognize the employee association. They refused to accept the rights of employees for freedom of association. It is fundamental right of any one to make the association, union. RECOMMENDATION The Pharmaceutical Company should follow the rules regulation made by govt. they should follow the business ethics. And what they are promising to public stick on it. Company should follow Biotechnological, environmental, social ethics. Here we have seen the difference between precepts and practices of Wockhardt Ltd.

They should very clear in labeling, employee security, and social responsibility. CONCLUSION The above instances of unethical practices by one of Indias leading pharmaceutical companies Wockhardt, reveals the divergence that exists between precepts and practices. Unethical companies tend to use code of business conduct and ethics as a mask to show a humane face to the outside world, while they adopt all kinds of unethical practices in their workplace. CRITICAL ANALYSIS Here Wockhardt putted public, govt. and consumers in dark. They have involved themselves in so many unethical businesses as like selling milk products as a substitute of breast milk, victimization of employees, lack of service security, unethical sales practices, promoting health care system through improperly labeled samples and harassing competitors in matters of clinical trials. Even though they have written in their business philosophy, Creating value by understanding and communicating with its customers and business partners, and in vision To be the most admired Indian Health Care Group. This type of things are unexpected by a leading global and distinguish company.

The Unethical Business Practice Of Bribery By Shell Business Essay

1.3 Introduction
As globalization increases many organizations indulge in unethical practices to achieve growth and profit maximization. Consequently, the examples of such companies include LOreal, Nike, Wal-Mart, Shell etc. Shell, is a global group of energy and petrochemical companies. They have their headquarters situated in Hague, the Netherlands. The parent company of the Shell group is Royal Dutch Shell plc, which is incorporated in England and Wales. Shells operated in more than 90 countries and has an approximate of 93000 employees. Their production mainly consists of forty eight percent of natural

gas and around 3.3million barrels of gas and oil is produced per day. Shell has established forty three service stations worldwide. According to a survey conducted in 2010, theyve sold an estimated 145 billion litres of fuel. The Company has two main streams, upstream which explores for and extracts crude oil and natural gas and Downstream which refines supplies, trades and ships crude worldwide, manufactures and markets a range of products, and produces petrochemicals for industrial customers. According to their financial report of 2010, with the capital invested of $30.6 billion and $1 billion in Investment in research and development, they had an income of $20.5billion with revenue of $368.1 billion (Shell, 2010). 1.4 Historical Background Shell was born during days of the oil boom and started out in the shadow of John D. Rockefellers Standard oil monopoly. Royal Dutch/Shell was the result of a merger in 1907 between the British-based Shell Transport and Trading Company, which pioneered the use of seagoing oil tankers and the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company, which made its fortune developing new oil fields in Borneo and Sumatra. Marcus Samuel was an enterprising fellow who decided to greet ships returning to England from India, Japan, Africa, and the Middle East and offer to buy any trinkets and curious that sailors had collected abroad. In the 1890s, the French Rothchild family decided to go into business exploiting the oil fields opening up in Baku in Russia. Needing a partner to help them transport and sell the oil, they turned to Marcus Samuel the younger. After a brief trip to the Caucasus, Marcus Samuel decided that the only way to take on the near monopoly grip that Standard Oil held was to radically reduce oil transportation costs. During that time kerosene was transported in crates of tin containers. Loading the fuel into these relatively small containers, crating them, and loading them onto ship as time consuming, expensive and inefficient, Samuel argued. It would be much preferable to just pipe the oil into a tanker ship. In 1907, Sir Marcus Samuel and Henri Deterding merged the Shell Transport and Trading Company with the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company to create Royal Dutch/Shell. The company is owned forty percent by the Shell Transport and Trading Company and sixty percent by the Royal Dutch Petroleum (History of Business, 2010). In the 1980s, Shell sought to grow through acquisition. It bought out the remaining 30% shareholding in Shell Oil in 1985 to consolidate its American operations. The 1980s saw the development of offshore exploration projects, which were in much more challenging conditions than had previously been attempted. The 1990s Shell saw the technology of biomass fuels and Gas to Liquids make giant leaps forward. Shell was criticized over the Brent Spar episode in 1995, which centered on its plans to dispose of the storage platform. The Group

learned that public opinion had become much more sensitive to environmental issues. In the next decade, the Group worked much harder to open a dialogue with interested parties regarding its environmental impact and to develop good relations with the communities affected by its work. Another problem to hit the Group arose from its presence in the Nigerian region of Ogoniland. The tribal minority in the Ogoni were aggrieved with the Nigerian government because they felt denied a proper share of federal revenues from the oil, and what they saw as other fundamental human rights. Their champion was the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa. The oil companies were targeted as collaborators with the corrupt government. Shell was accused of environmental despoliation. The story achieved international notoriety when Saro-Wiwa and eight of his colleagues were sentenced to death by hanging for their activities. Shell has since strived to follow a policy of demonstrating its community of interests and reciprocal good feeling with both the governments and the local populaces it deals with. The 1990s were notable for Shell for the development of the LNG gas business. Improved transportation and rising demand made this area of the Groups activities increasingly important and are expected to continue to do so in the first decades of the twenty-first century (Shell, 2010). 1.5 Report Preview This report examines various unethical practices of Shell. Firstly, it investigates upon the historical background of Shell. Moreover, we have related Shells immoral issues to the ethical theories. Along with these principles we also suggest some recommendations which could be reasonably essential for Shell to operate in a better and efficient manner. Finally, the report concludes with importance on ethics, corporate social responsibility and with our suggestion on its unethical action. 2.0 Shells Unethical practices: In 2010, Shell was accused of bribery practice with Nigerian officials in order to gain profit. Shell bribed Nigerian officials to make it easier for them to import goods and equipment, get lower taxes and avoid the customs. Shell said that it paid 2 million U.S Dollars to its Nigerian Workers in its deep water Bonga Project. Shell actually knew that part of the money will go to Nigerian officials whom will make shell avoid the customs process. This will give shell an obvious competitive advantage in the market. Shell actually gained $14million profit from this bribery of the Bonga project. Shell will pay $48.1 million dollars in order to settle probes by the U.S Justice Department and Securities and Exchange Commission. In January 2004, fraudulent overstatement of proven hydrocarbon reserves by Shell in Form F20 returns filed with the U.S. Securities & Exchange

Commission(John Donovan,2007). Shell has given misleading and wrong statements about its reserves. It paid a $120 million fine for this claims settlement. One of the famous unethical practices by Shell was causing the high levels of pollution in Nigeria.40% of shells oil spills worldwide was in Nigeria. The oil spill also caused water contamination. It caused oil pollution in the Ogoniland region for the past 40 years or so. The pipelines were built in front of the peoples houses and in their farmlands. They suffered oil leaks through the pipelines. This has totally destroyed the environment over there. It killed the aquatic life; killing many fishes. Also enveloped the land with oil. This has been really devastating for the Ogoni people, economically and healthy, since their economy depends mainly on fishing and farming. People suffered respiratory diseases such as bronchial asthma; and cancer. Lots of vegetation is dying, especially Mangrove swamps, due to wastes of oil in the Niger River. The reason Shell has been successful in doing these unethical practices in Nigeria is because they used to bribe the Nigerian officials frequently to ease the process. Royal Dutch Shell Blames oil spills on sabotage to its equipment ( Chima Williams,2009). This explains how rude and unethically they take responsibility for their awful actions. According to the Covalence ethical ranking in 2008, saw Shell in the 510 position out of 541 multinational companies. Covalence s ethical quotation system is a reputation index based on quantifying qualitative data and It is a barometer of how multinationals are perceived in the ethical field(John Donovan 2009). The covalence ethical ranking is based on important issues such as Human rights policy, Waste Management, Labor standards and product social utility. A research done by Management and Excellence in 2005 sees Shell as the number 1 most ethical oil company in the world. But by the end of 2011, Shells position is expected to deteriorate much due to the bribery scandal it suffered for the last few months. 2.1 Conoco Phillips: Conoco Phillips is a Non-government owned American oil and Gas Corporation. Its the 3rd largest of the oil majors worldwide. It works in all different aspects in oil and natural gas industry such as Midstream, Petrochemicals, and Refining and Marketing. The company was formed as a result of a merger between Conoco and Philips in 2002. Its major competitors are Shell, British Petroleum and Exxon Mobil. Conoco Philips is one of the few Oil companies that suffer unethical issues. According to Conoco Philips, Our mission is to do more than to deliver energy. It has a long term commitment to achieve the top ethical standards and create a culture that encourages

honesty and responsibility in everything they do. Conoco Philips values the importance of corporate transparency and ethics as they are a major drive for consumers and stakeholders confidence. A proof of ConocoPhillipss environmental concern is that it spent $80 million dollars to develop new technologies for unconventional and alternative energy sources. ConocoPhillips is a member of the U.S Climate Action Partnership, which is a group of businesses, major corporations and environmental organization with a goal to pressure the U.S Government to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions. ConocoPhillips spent around $150 million dollars 2007 on research and development of alternative energy sources and new technologies- which is almost a 50% increase compared to the $80 million dollar spent in 2006. 2.2 Shell vs. ConocoPhillips Shell is the 2nd biggest company in the world in terms of revenue, which makes it more profitable than ConocoPhillips (16th). Actually, after the recent bribery issues about Shell, its position will eventually drop in the next few years. They will suffer from employee turnover, loss of company reputation and lots of other disadvantages which will not enable them to be more profitable like before. Whilst for ConocoPhillips, its very predictable that this company will get closer to Shell in terms of revenue and why not surpass it, due to its ethical practices! Thats why Shell should have good ethical policies like that of ConocoPhillips and actually adapt this policy and not violate it. 3.0 Recommendations and Facts: 3.1 Recommendations First of all if Shell wants to get back its reputation after the Nigeria bribery incident, they have to change their vision, not the written vision statement, in fact they have to change their insight toward the business they are doing and try to change their practices in a way that help and satisfy people instead of hurting them. They should keep in mind that business is not about gaining profit from whatever way, rather it is about gaining profit from providing services in a way that satisfies customers and if they act ethically eventually they will gain enough profit as they have satisfied people behind their back who support the company (Tempo, 2005). Shell should be considered guilty in this case and be fined for their unethical business practice. Furthermore, Nigerian government should be accountable and responsible for their action as well. The amount of fine that usually determined by courts should be either used for research purposes or as financial aid to help people around the globe. If they do so, Shell will force to do something that they escaped from and try to improve their instruments and facilities by doing research and development instead of trying to gain profit without thinking about safety and effects of their action on stakeholders (Tempo, 2005).

More strict rules and regulations regarding the bribery issue and control of governments over their companies can lead to termination of bribery in long term. If Shell maintains a strict No Bribe policy, in long term bribe takers wont ask for it anymore. Then even if they fail in their business they wont blame themselves for paying bribes and they will know that there was something wrong with their facilities and services. 3.2 Facts The main reason that shell wanted to bribe Nigerian government was that they wanted to pay less taxes and easier import of their needed equipment, which eventually leads to higher profit. Thus they only looked for profit and to reach that, they choose bribery as an unethical practice. They shouldnt do that because even if we dont consider bribery as an unethical practice it was illegal and against law in Nigeria, however we know that bribery is an unethical practice indeed. The next thing is that bribery encourages corruption, and this action hurts the poor the most as they have to pay for something which is free and they get into trouble for paying the amount, because they cannot afford it. When a large company like Shell practices, in this case bribery, which is defiantly unethical, this act will spread to the whole society and affect the society in large (Tempo, 2005). Moreover when you start paying bribe for the first time it leads to demand for more bribes and work as a kind of temptation. So it is better never start it. Aid agencies trying to provide free services for those who need help and it is not morally accepted and expected from officials to try to make money from those services that supposed to be free. We believe and agree that Shell did something which is morally wrong and ethical person wont advocate it, but there is a positive point in shells case. Shell accepted that they did and unethical and wrong action and admitted their mistake, they also agreed to pay $48m in criminal and civil fines. However shell had to admit their mistake but still we can consider it as a positive movement from shell and we can hope that Shell try to be an ethical company from now onwards, stop their unethical business practices and try to gain profit while following ethical business practices (Temp,2005). 4.0 Conclusion In conclusion, we all agree that bribery is an unethical business practice and it is not expected from large company such as Shell to practice such actions. It is not only the case that Shell paid bribe, the most important thing is that such actions, eventually leads to corruption of society which all of us believe to be destructive. Shell can follow Conoco Phillips and invest in research and development and try to improve its facilities, and by doing this they might earn less profit in the short term but they can be proud of themselves by being an ethical company and gaining more profit than their competitors in the long

term as they will have new technologies and facilities in future because they invest in research and development today. Shell Should be accountable for what they did and be responsible for their unethical behavior and try to stop such acts in future if they want to build their reputation again as people and stakeholders wont trust Shell as long as they continue being unethical. However if Shell really wants to be changed and get back its reputation they can do it by clarifying their vision among themselves and act ethically. Need an essay? You can buy essay help from us today!