In recent years, there has been a rise in cases of accounting fraud and other infringements of business morals due to dishonorable managing decisions made by certain companies in the United States. Among these cases is one which involves Citigroup Inc., a major American international financial services corporation based in New York. The firm is being fined $30 Million by a Massachusetts top securities regulator (BNN, 2013). This is due to the fact that they claim that a Citigroup analyst sent confidential and unpublished information in a report regarding Hon Hai Precision Industry Company (a major supplier of Apple Inc.) to firms such as SAC, Citadel and GLG partners (BNN, 2013). As stated by William Galvin, Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth, the Hon Hai research report contained information implying that Apples production numbers were declining, and that this information may be detrimental to Apples performance (BNN, 2013). The illegal proceedings by the Citigroup analyst caused the three clients of the financial services corporation to make decisions on buying or selling their Apple stocks before this information was released to the public. This move may be against the regulations of the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, since Citigroup is a publicly traded company in the New York Stock Exchange. Therefore, I strongly believe that the action made against Citigroup was properly done due to the fact that they clearly misused their responsibility and broke the laws set before them by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Works Cited:

Herbst-Bayliss, Svea. “Citigroup Fined $30M after Analyst Sent Report to SAC, Others.” BNN News. Business News Network, 3 Oct. 2013. Web. 14 Oct. 2013. <http://www.bnn.ca/News/2013/10/3/Citigroup-fined-30M-after-analyst-sent-report-to-SAC-others.aspx>.

Article URL:

http://www.bnn.ca/News/2013/10/3/Citigroup-fined-30M-after-analyst-sent-report-to-SAC-others.aspx