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Soumi answered on May 06 2020
MANAGERIAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
[LIVE CASE ANALYSIS OF THE ‘COMMONWEALTH BANK MONEY LAUNDERING’ CASE]
Table of Contents
Case Facts 3
Case Issues 4
Ethical Dilemma 5
Utilitarianism 5
Kantianism 6
Rights 7
Distributive Justice 7
Final Recommendation 7
References 9
Case Facts
The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is an international bank based in Australia that operates across the Asian countries, UK, US and New Zealand. It excels in providing a varied range of financial services, which include the provision of services to both retail as well as institutional organisations. Its financial services and products mainly encompass of financial insurance, private equities, investment banking, broking services, wealth management, credit cards and mortgages (Commbank, 2018). According to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), it is the largest list bank in Australia as per the data of 2015 (ASX, 2018). Its annual revenue income if AUD 26.005bn as per the fiscal year 2016-2017 (Commbank, 2017).
Having been at the face of success for a long time, the bank also has its share of operational issues and errors that have imparted negative impact to the organisation as a whole, as well as have caused significant amount of losses to both monetary and non-monetary earnings of the company. One of such incidents is the case of money laundering that took place in 2017 and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia had to experience an extremely difficult phase as well as a negation of brand image. The Commonwealth Bank was charged with the allegations of laundering money of the account holders and clients of the bank, along with breaching the laws that safeguard it, which was offence from ethical grounds (Financial Times, 2018).
According to Shaw et al. (2016), an issue can be considered on ethical grounds only when it violates the morale norms of the situation, the organisation or procedure. In the chosen case, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia had committed an ethical issue because various individuals used to deposit money into the accounts of a large number of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which was later on found to be illegal transactions of money for the drug dealing scandal group (Australian Financial Review, 2017). Apart from this allegation, the Commonwealth Bank was also on the point of accusation for about 100 claims, which were imposed on it by Austrac, a financial crime-fighting agency of Australia (Financial Times, 2018).
Therefore, given the gravity of the error and the grounds of judging it, the unethical nature of their act could be illustrated, which indicates that the organisation is very much liable to admit the fault as well as be subjected to the suitable punishment for the identified criminal offence. As mentioned by Carroll and Bocholtz (2014), the decision-maker of an unethical issue is liable to make the required amendments and changes to their proceedings as well as to their operations, immediately, to safeguard the occurrence of future issues on this or similar grounds. Here, this is supported through theoretical underpinnings.
Case Issues
The key issue that occurred at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia was the case of money laundering from its large number of branches all over Australia to the companies dealing in illegal drug business and carrying on drug rackets. In the year 2015, these kinds of suspicious transactions began, wherein some young individuals were made to act as carriers, who were given an amount of money to be transferred to be a bank account in the name of a valid and existing company. Most of the times, it was noted that the chosen bank for the transaction was the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, at its various branches in different cities. For example, in May 2015, while two young men were arrested at Sydney, laundering money through Commonwealth Bank, in the same year, a young girl from Hong Kong was arrested for a similar offence, however, through the branches of the bank in Perth (The Financial Times Ltd, 2018).
However, the case was even more severe due to the involvement of the drug packets that were smuggled as ice or methylamphetamine, which was investigated to have been done mostly to Hong Kong, where a drug dealing gang was operating the entire scenario. Over 101 branches of the bank was used for depositing money, and the members of the drug dealing gang used to withdraw the money from their Hong Kong branches (Australian Financial Review, 2017). However, as argued by Valentine et al. (2015), this does not diminish the role of the bank in any way, because it was severally involved in...