http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/09/us-diamond-sec-accountingfraud-idUSBREA0813020140109

From my readings, the major point I gathered regarding ethics as a whole is honesty.  In fact, what I have learned in my eighteen years is that honesty is typically ethically responsible, in both business and personal affairs.
The article I found talks of a company, Diamond Foods, being forced to pay five million dollars to settle civil charges regarding artificially inflated financial statements– misleading investors.  The dishonest, and also illegal, practice made the net income for that fiscal year appear higher– exceeding the expectations of analysts which raised suspicion.
No one wins in cases of fraud. (Especially the corporations doing the deceiving in the first place so they are basically shooting themselves in the foot in regards to the long run).  Corporations, when caught, lose reputation points, trust from investors and also the value of their stock (the stock of Diamond Foods fell to $17/share from a high $90/share after the unraveling of the accounting scandal and the restatement of the proper– much lower– amounts).  Meanwhile, shareholders, who trust that the business is being honest about their financial statements because it’s the law and morally correct, are being fooled.  Once they discover the fraud, they are quick to pull out their shares– causing the stock to plummet (which for those who’s strategy is shorting the market but that is an entirely different matter).
It’s purely a no win situation– financial dishonesty may be a short term solution to a financial crisis by hiding it behind false numbers but the truth will always be revealed– eventually.