Are Your Claims of Ethicality Either Ethical or Legal?

An extremely interesting post on the Conflict of Interest Blog caught my eye this morning. In it, a case is described in which Goldman Sachs, the mega-investment firm defended their inappropriate actions, in part, by claiming that their promises of ethical behavior were merely "puffey" and not really intended to be a promise of ethical behavior. Therefore, as the logic goes, they shouldn't be held legally liable for breaching their promise of ethical behavior. Besides perhaps setting a new low water mark for indefensible defenses, it also got me thinking about the hollowness of so many promises of ethics in both the public and private sectors.

For example, how many of you have an ethics code which, among other things, simply states that ethical behavior will be expected. In essence, the ethics code simply promises ethical behavior. Besides the awkward circularity of that logic, how can you possibly assure - or, really, even adequately support - ethical behavior if you don't provide specific guidance regarding what that ethical behavior actually involves. Without such guidance, might not your claims and promises of ethical behavior be just as likely to be viewed a "puffery" as were Goldman Sachs'? After all, an empty promise is largely what puffery is all about, yes?

The court has now held that false promises of ethicality are not a legal shelter and I suspect we can all agree that any type of false promise is a defacto ethical violation. So, are you prepared to show that your local government's ethics code represents a genuine, concerted, persistent, effective effort to develop and maintain a culture of ethics? Remember, you need to be able to demonstrate all four of those qualities; the need to be able to do so has always been an ethical mandate. Now it seems as if it might be a legal mandate for your government as well.