Law 531 Week 2 Team Paper

Business Law 531

June 19, 2011

While executing the Business Regulation Simulation the team found that the desired methods where not used at times. The best choice in our opinion wasn't always the best choice in the interest of Alumina Inc. There were ramifications of every decision some in favor of the company and some in favor of the plaintiff, very few in favor of the public. This led us to further evaluate the decisions we were making and to be more mindful of the results that could possibly occur. The team will now explain how regulatory risks may be identified and managed through preventative, detective and corrective methods.

In chapter 5 the text discusses how regulations have an impact on businesses and why they are in place to protect both the public and the private entities. Because Alumina Inc had only one occurrence within the last five years may have seemed exemplary but this of course was held not to be true. That one isolated occurrence is what left them liable to the suit at hand. Alumina's environmental law violation not only showed negligence on their part but also left them liable to potential claims against them.

Kelly Bates, the plaintiff in the simulation had accused that due to Alumina's negligence her daughter was stricken with leukemia and felt that she was entitled to damages. This Tort represented the fact that Ms. Bates wanted Alumina to be acknowledged as being at fault and compensated for the issues related to her daughter's health. Although Alumina had no prior history to violations this one would prove to be hefty enough. One could argue that preventative methods should have been in place to protect Alumina from such suits and I would imagine that there were but not all preventative methods can work all of the time. In this particular situation Alumina took corrective methods to ensure this problem was both corrected and done so with more preventative tactics. Alumina, when informed of the potential suit was left with options that could pose both threatening to the company and the public as well. They faced not only potential scrutiny by the newspapers editorial but also by the general public.

When approaching situations such as this you must look at the effect it will have on everyone not just the best interest of the company. Alumina had the option to release a article in the newspaper discussing their record and how they are up to date with current standards. While this may have put the general public at ease they stood to lose a lot of supporters should this report prove to be inaccurate in anyway. A simple oversight would damage their relationship with both the stakeholders and the public. The most ethical decision in a situation such as this would have been to utilize the option of conducting ad independent study, and if proven that Alumina is within the set guidelines they could then publish those records. This allows the public to see the track record that Alumina has had and also shows that they are concerned about meeting and exceeding Environmental Protection Agency standards. The method