Conducting Buinsess Overseas

The Legal and Ethical Environment of Business 11/12/12 Phase 5 Individual Project Professor Ivy When conducting business overseas it is important to know the legal regulations (N/A, N/A) which should be considered as the first part of the business plan. One should do their research about how business is handled to avoid illegal activities that one may not be aware of. Some of the regulations are permits, licenses, requirements, documentation, and laws that apply in that country.There are laws for importing merchandise into another country so therefore one must check with someone who specialize in that area of laws. As an importer one must give customs a complete report on the delivery of goods. On December 8, 1993 the Customs Modernization Act was put into place in order to â€Å"shift legal responsibility (N/A, N/A) from Customs to the importer for declaring, among other things, the value, classification, and rate of duty applicable to entered merchandise†. Importers should u se reasonable care when complying with Customs requirements in order to fulfill their duties as importers.As part of Customs they strongly enforce requirements from other agencies which include Environmental Protection Agency, the Drug Enforcement Agency, and the Food and Drug Administration. All of these agencies are included to make sure goods passes safety requirements before any goods are imported into another country. If it is determined that an importer fail to use reasonable care they could face monetary penalties for not following laws. Any company that has large import activity should have satisfactory procedures in place in order to make sure they’re in compliance with Custom laws.Many importers use Customs Broker (N/A, N/A) to handle their files for them. These agencies are licensed by Customs to deal with files for importers. As an importer there is specific documentation requirements needed before any goods can be imported into another country. So therefore, impo rters use Custom Brokers to gather and file all of the necessary documents for importing the goods. Importers are still responsible for following all rules under the Mod Act. If these laws are broken they can be held liable for criminal or civil penalties under the Mod Act.Criminal Penalties can be defined as anyone who gives false information to Customs officers. Anyone who is in violation of this statue could face two years imprisonment, fines, or possible both for all violation that were related to importation. Civil penalties can be defined as anyone who provide fraud through the use of gross negligence or transmit false data which relates to any fraudulent activities. As part of Customs authority they can seize merchandise to get payment for the violation. As part of doing business oversees one will deal with exporters.Exporter duties (N/A, N/A) include making sure that it is legal to export merchandise from United States to another country. They are also responsible to make su re that all required documentation are in order and filed to proper agency. Before exporting any product one should be sure to check for licenses and other documentation needed to export products. There are certain laws that apply to exporters which include laws such as anti-boycott laws, the Export Administration Regulations, and Economic sanctions.When determining whether or not a license is needed for export the appropriate authority checks for the product’s classification, end-user, and end-use. It is also important that one should know about Free Trade Agreements. Free Trade Agreements (N/A, 2010) is known to be one of the best opportunities to expand the foreign market to the United States. Part of the Free Trade Agreement is to reduce barriers to United States exports which protect the United States interests. This law makes it easier and less expensive for U. S. ompanies to export their goods to trading market partners. So therefore, we could use this to our advantage as a company to export goods to from and to other countries. The ethical code of conduct (N/A, Sigue Corp. , 2012) for employees and vendors is to ensure strong ethical principles govern prevent conflicts that might occur between the employees and vendors. All employees and vendors must abide by the company’s ethical code of conduct. In order for the code of conduct to be enforced each employee or vendor must report any conflicts that relates to the company’s welfare.As part of the company’s policy we are responsible for keeping customers, employees, and vendors satisfied with the services provided from this company. So therefore, we required our employees to maintain a high level professional standard while conducting business in our company. Employees should keep all information confidential about Company, customers, employees, agents, and vendors. If any employee has an issue we encourage them to consult with someone such supervisor, management, or anyone el se in a higher position about any problems they may encounter.If employees or vendor are found to be in violation of Code of conduct will be investigated and immediately terminated. As part of the Company’s policies we report any unlawful behavior to the appropriate agency. This company doesn’t tolerate fraudulent behavior, dishonest, theft, embezzlement, threats, or any other inappropriate behavior. Legal and ethical guidelines (Phillips, 2012) are important in all businesses because they are part of laws that shall be followed. All businesses should have ethical guidelines that they should abide by in order to maintain laws which are enforceable by the state and government.If a business fails to follow guidelines and laws they could be punish or penalized by local laws that weren’t followed. Ethical guidelines is used to protect employees from being unpaid by enforcing laws for wages and hours worked. These laws are put in place to avoid businesses from not tr eating employees fairly such as not paying them for the hours worked or overtime. When distinguishing between right and wrong in business dealings (Merchant, 2006-2012) one must consider is the action true and how it will affect the business.They should also take into consideration whether or not the decision is fair to all parties involved. Another question one should ask is will the decision benefit the outcome of people that have invested in this dealing. After thinking about the outcome of all decision it is important that you chose the action that is legal in order to avoid illegal behavior that will lead to punishment of some type. The punishment could result in termination, fines, or imprisonment depending on what type of wrong doings one has committed.So therefore, when hiring employees one should make sure they are capable of making the right decision that will have a positive outcome for the company. As part of ethical conduct one must be capable of deciding what is right and what is wrong in order to have a good foundation in ethics. Making the right choices in a company could result in the company being successful and kept out of the public eye for unethical behavior. This type of behavior has prompted such an increase in these types of legal and ethical violations (Richard Mauer & Anna M. Tinsley, 2010) because they aren’t being handled appropriate.Many companies aren’t punished to the full extent because they have power and money to get them out of that situation. When other companies see that another company has gotten away breaking the law they think that they can away with it too. Ethical violations are increasing because many companies forget about them and want to get the job done in a short time with a low cost. Many companies in today’s society don’t have morals and good values so this makes it difficult to practice ethical guidelines for companies. If all companies enforced good ethical behavioral some of the u nethical violation could be reduced.This could lead to a more successful reliable business that more people will feel comfortable with. My opinion regarding the impact of the ethical implications (N/A, 2005-2012) and violations on the business itself from the perspective of the consumer is that this company follows rules and regulation to avoid illegal behavior. Some companies seem to think that they can get away with doing things that are not legal and that they won’t be caught. If the court keeps ordering them to pay fines and put them on probation they may not recognize what the consequences are.So I think they should lose money in order to realize that this type of behavior is unacceptable. So therefore, the company should be shut down until everything is corrected. I feel by them paying isn’t enough because they have billions of dollars and money isn’t a problem. Investors may feel that this company is reliable for their actions and may not want to do busin ess with them. The reason why investors may not want to do business with them is because they have a history of illegal and unethical behavior that may cause investors to lose money.