More than you possible think…not in terms of the substance in itself, but in terms of the corporate environment that led to 2 of the most (recent) infamous cases of corporate wrongdoing with significant impacts to the communities that those companies served and with material impact to the overall society.
The starting point, motivation and outcomes for the perpetrators were significantly different, however the framework that allowed such events to flourish within such corporations have the same underlying environment where the strong incentives (profitability, sunk costs, survival), led to the rationalization of a problem/situation that justified the action taken and there were no appropriate check & balances to eliminate the opportunity.
At the end of day, if the persons at the whelm do not have the ethics and moral values to stop something that is wrong despite the implication when made aware (C8 case), or even are the ones masterminding such behaviors (Fentanyl) and no counterpower is in place to stop it, the stage is set for such outcome. and, at least at the end, both were public listed US companies.
We should not forget that ethics is not something ethereal, but something very concrete that can be distilled in the following concept → based on the actual circumstances and facts what is my/your decision right here and right now to address such situation/problem!
As a beacon of light, it is also some people against all the odds, personal and family wellbeing that raised their voices and fought for such cases to be exposed and eventually stopped.
How did I came across such cases? In a simple and quite serendipitous way, on the last 2 weeks I saw these 2 (good) movies that portraited both cases in a very compelling way and both made me ponder for a couple of hours on the What, Why and How.
Hope you enjoy and think about such situations that mutatis mutandis might not be so far away as we possibly think!
Dark Waters - PrimeVideo
“….Dark Waters is a 2019 American legal thriller film directed by Todd Haynes and written by Mario Correa and Matthew Michael Carnahan. The story dramatizes Robert Bilott's case against the chemical manufacturing corporation DuPont after they contaminated a town with unregulated chemicals. It stars Mark Ruffalo as Bilott, along with Anne Hathaway, Tim Robbins, Bill Camp, Victor Garber, Mare Winningham, William Jackson Harper, and Bill Pullman.
The film is based on the 2016 New York Times Magazine article "The Lawyer Who Became DuPont's Worst Nightmare" by Nathaniel Rich.[2][3] The story was first told in the 2007 book Stain-Resistant, Nonstick, Waterproof and Lethal: The Hidden Dangers of C8 by Callie Lyons, a Mid-Ohio Valley journalist who covered the controversy as it was unfolding.[4] Parts of the story were also reported by Mariah Blake, whose 2015 article "Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia" was a National Magazine Award finalist,[5] and Sharon Lerner, whose series "Bad Chemistry" ran in The Intercept.[6][7] Bilott also wrote a memoir, Exposure,[8] detailing his 20-year legal battle against DuPont.[9]
Dark Waters had a limited theatrical release on November 22, 2019, by Focus Features, and went wide on December 6, 2019. The film received positive reviews from critics and had grossed over $23 million. …”
“…Pain Hustlers is a 2023 American crime drama film directed by David Yates from a screenplay by Wells Tower, based on the 2022 book of the same name by Evan Hughes.[3] The film stars Emily Blunt, Chris Evans, Andy García, Catherine O'Hara, Jay Duplass, Brian d'Arcy James, and Chloe Coleman. Its plot centers on a high school dropout who lands a job with a failing pharmaceutical company in Central Florida, where she soon finds herself at the center of a criminal conspiracy.
Pain Hustlers had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 11, 2023, and was released in select theaters in the United States on October 20, 2023, before its streaming debut by Netflix on October 27, 2023…”
