2012年ACCA考试精选模拟题（2）

　　Another derivatives trader in the Philos office，Emma Hubu，spoke to the media informally. She said that Mr Mineta was brilliant and highly motivated but that he often said that he didn’t care about the trading rules. Miss Hubu explained that Mr Mineta didn’t believe in right and wrong and once told her that “I’m in this job for what I can get for myself – big risks bring big returns and big bonuses for me.” She also explained that the culture of the Philos office was driven by Mr Mineta’s line manager，Juan Evora. She said that Mr Evora knew that Mr Mineta was breaking trading rules but was also very profits driven and kept compliance information from head office so that the nature of Mr Mineta’s trading was not uncovered. The compliance information was required by head office but several failures to return the information had not been acted upon by head office. Mr Evora’s bonus was directly linked to the size of the Philos office’s profits and all of the derivatives traders，including Mr Mineta，were regularly reminded about the importance of taking risks to make big returns. Miss Hubu said that trading rules were not enforced and that head office never got involved in what went on in Philos as long as the annual profits from the Philos derivative traders were at or above expectations.

　　It emerged that the lack of correct information from Philos and elsewhere meant that Global-bank’s annual report statement of internal control effectiveness was not accurate and gave an unduly favourable impression of the company’s internal controls. In addition，the company’s audit committee had been recently criticised by the external auditors for a lack of thoroughness. Also，the audit committee had recently lost two non-executive members that had not been replaced.

　　The amount lost by Mr Mineta made it necessary to refinance the Global-bank business and when the board recommended a US$5 billion rights issue，some of the institutional investors demanded an extraordinary general meeting （EGM）。Global-bank’s largest single shareholder，the Shalala Pension Fund，that held 12% of the shares，was furious about the losses and wanted an explanation from Mrs Keefer on why internal controls were so ineffective. When the Shalala trustees met after the losses had been reported，it was decided to write an urgent letter to Mrs Keefer expressing the trustees’ disappointment at her role in the internal control failures at Global-bank. The letter would be signed by Millau Haber， the chairman of the Shalala trustees.

　　At the EGM，Mrs Keefer made a statement on behalf of the Global-bank board. In it she said that Mineta had been a rogue trader who had wilfully disregarded the company’s internal controls and was，in breaking the company’s trading rules，criminally responsible for the theft of company assets. She denied that the main Global-bank board had any responsibility for the loss and said that it was a ‘genuinely unforeseeable’ situation.

　　（a） Kohlberg’s theory of the development of moral reasoning contains three levels， with each level containing two stages or ‘planes’。 It is a useful framework for understanding the ways in which people think about ethical issues.