Business and Local Government: Prevention of Unethical Conduct

Anna Mueller; Jadranka Skorin-Kapov

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Business and Local Government: Prevention of Unethical Conduct

Anna Mueller and Jadranka Skorin-Kapov

Stony Brook University, USA

Volume 12: 2023 pp. 209-218: ABSTRACT

The case describes the developments of an ethics code observed in the local government of Suffolk County, New York, USA. In Suffolk County, there is now a dedicated Board of Ethics Agency (“Board”) within the local government to ensure that business operations and government operations run as ethically compliant as possible. This Board was created in 2012 in order to follow compliance with a law that established a replacement for the Ethics Commission (previously existing within Suffolk County) because this Ethics Commission had been involved in a serious controversy. The former County Executive, Steve Levy, was found guilty of compromising the “integrity of an ethics commission”. Suffolk County government prescribed various measures in order to ensure that the citizens of Suffolk County were protected from business ethical violations. The Board also preemptively created laws that discouraged businesses from acting unethically.

Keywords: ethics, local government, business ethics, Suffolk County Departments, Suffolk County Board of Ethics.