House of Reps or Ill Repute?

No - This isn't about Tom DeLay's indictment. That's already all over the papers. In fact, I'm really not too sure what this post is about because it's about a number of things.

To start, while surfing the web the other day in an attempt to find some good articles on what some good companies are doing right, I came across just such an article (sort of), titled Developing an Ethical Company. Actually, you can find a lot of 'stuff' out there about what companies are doing to enhance corporate governance but it was the language in this particular article that caught my eye (read carefully -- underlines inserted by me):

Nothing is more important than our commitment to integrity - no financial objective, no marketing target, no effort to outdo the competition. Our commitment to integrity must always come first. -- Louis C. Camilleri, Chairman & CEO, Altria Group Inc.

Altria Group is the parent company of Kraft Foods and the three divisions of Philip Morris (PM). Now, we all know the tobacco industry has had its troubles and the program that Altria began developing in 2001 was admittedly done, in large part, to regain stakeholder confidence in the tobacco divisions and elsewhere. From the article, it appears that the program has been well thought out and meticulously implemented.

Wonderful!

I pick up the Wall Street Journal today and am reading about Tom DeLay's (temporary) successor, Roy Blunt. Roy divorced his wife of 31 years in 2002 and married Abigail Perlman, a lobbyist for PM, in 2003. While this may not be illegal, is it ethical for a politician in Blunt's position to have such a close relationship with a lobbyist for such a huge and influential company? To add to that, the WSJ article reports that in 2002 (while the couple was dating) Blunt tried to slip in a provision that would benefit PM's USA division into the bill that created the Dept. of Homeland Security. The provision would have made tobacco sales over the Internet more difficult and would have cracked down on contraband sales of cigarettes, both of which cut into PM's profits. When other Republicans learned of Blunt's efforts, the provision was removed from the legislation.

Besides other questions that all of this information raises, what does it say about Altria's commitment to compliance and integrity? The company surely knew of the relationship between Blunt and Perlman, as well as that little provision. On both sides, the question of 'conflict of interest' should have been raised and someone's position probably should have been altered to avoid just that (by the way, Blunt has received sizable political contributions from the company in the past).

I realize this is just one instance where, perhaps the compliance police at Altria were just taking a break and let something slip, but it's just these kinds of contrary, knit-picky things that happen over time and perhaps go unnoticed by many. But for those who do notice, the true 'tone at the top' begins to show through and, little by little, others in the company will pick up on it and follow suit. It's as if Altria is saying, "No - No - No... Well, okay - maybe this one time."