So the former CFO of HealthSouth, Michael Martin, was sentenced today for his part in the HealthSouth scandal in which their earnings were pumped up by an imaginary $4 billion or more - they haven't finished counting the losses. Martin gets a cushy 5 years probation a $50,000 fine and has to give back his ill gotten gains.

For some reason we're supposed to feel like he was a good guy because he quit when the CEO refused to heed his warnings that they should lower earnings expectations. However what he should have done was go straight to the SEC and tell them what was going on, thus avoiding the CEO getting away with three more years of over inflated earnings amounting to billions.

However it looks like Martin fell foul of the temptation to profit from his departure by staying quiet. Its hardly surprising really - when your only penalty for being discovered is forfeiting the gains and a 5-year suspended sentence where's the deterrant? If a bank robber stole a couple of million and was caught would he get a suspended sentence and just have to give the money back? Hell no! So why the double standard for our nations corporate elite?

I await with interest what sentence the CEO Scrushy gets. There may be some justice in the world if Scrushy goes down for 650-year sentence he could potentially get if all charges against him stick. But maybe like another well know chief-executive Scrushy will be able to dodge the charges and use the "its wan't me, it was a few bad apples" defense. Only time will tell.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment