that rationale is that obeying the law is a financial decision rather than a moral decision. if the (money) price of breaking the law is less than the profit made by breaking the law, then the CFO will decide to do it.
this is THE classic example of corporate sociopathy. unfortunately its still the way a lot of companies do business.
It's not that simple. Running around thinking that CFO = evil sociopath is ridiculous. It's about motivation and accountability.
The story in the article is a great example, I don't think the CFO thought that she was breaking the law. It was a practice that she had engaged in previously, it was vetted by a big-5 accounting firm, and benefited the employees. The CFO was widely respected in the industry -- this wasn't some flimflam person or sociopath.
When your attorney works for someone else, that other party becomes the client. If you, as a CEO (or an individual) are ultimately accountable for the outcome of your decisions, you want the attorney working for YOU, so that you get unfiltered information to drive decisions.
my comment was a response to the question "why do some companies have the GC report to the CFO?". it was not about the company in the originally linked article, which obviously does not use this structure (and for good reason).
regarding that CFO from the linked article though, the federal prosecutor seemed to believe she was a criminal, and proved it enough that a jury agreed also and she eventually served jail time. we're not mind readers so we don't know how she felt about her actions, but honestly, it kinda looks to me like she really was a low level sociopath. just because she was surrounded by people who reinforced and validated her behavior doesn't mean she was acting morally.
I think this is a misuse of the word 'sociopath'. There are lots of things that are not strictly legal that we do all the time. Some of them result in in jail sentences (eg. possession of marijuana can hardly be called sociopathic).
I was not using sociopath as a synonym with "broke a law, any law". I was sociopath to mean "engaged in behavior that caused some level of harm to society". A low-level sociopath does something that causes a low level of harm to society. Accounting Fraud is a form of low level sociopathy, in my opinion.
How do you quantify jailtime in the 'price of breaking the law'? Also if the CEO has no knowledge of the CFO breaking the law, how can he be held accountable?
Speaking of quantifying stuff, if she only served 3 months that's not even that bad. Who knows how much money she made
the firm over time; it may well be a net positive over all. And I'm sure she could be properly compensated for the
jailtime.
this is THE classic example of corporate sociopathy. unfortunately its still the way a lot of companies do business.