The following is a case analysis based on a well-known celebrity Martha Stewart. Stewart was a Jersey girl who became well-known as the author of books on cooking, entertaining and decorating, and later grew her brand to include a magazine and television program, and serving as CEO of Martha Stewart Omnimedia. Stewart is an American media mogul of her time, and became more famous in late 2001, following charges of insider trading of which hit the media circuit like a tsunami (Stewart Bio, n.d,).
The news of Stewart’s unethical legal issue of insider trading had become an industry of commentary amongst the media for weeks and months to follow. Stewart’s reputation of the well-known queen of domestic perfection was being tarnished by all of the accusations of…show more content… The SEC filed the charges, stating that Stewart committed the act of illegal insider trading, because she sold stock in a biopharmaceutical company, ImClone Systems, Inc., on Dec. 27, 2001, “after receiving an unlawful tip from Bacanovic, at the time a broker with Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated” ("SEC," n.d, p. 1). The SEC claims that Stewart and Bacanovic met and devised a plan to conceal pertinent facts about the trade during SEC and criminal investigations. This act of mistruth provoked the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York to obtain an indictment, charging Stewart and her broker Bacanovic, for false statements relating to the sale of ImClone stock ("SEC," n.d,). The Commission wanted to punish Stewart and Bacanovic for the unlawful trade to include civil monetary penalties. As well as, “barring Stewart from acting as a director of, and limiting her activities as an officer of, any public company,” ("SEC," n.d, p. 1), which would include Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia,