¶ … Stanwick and Stanwick (2009) in their case study "Tyco: I'm Sure That It's a Really Nice Shower Curtain" is that certain the Tyco CEO and his business associates, family and acquaintances misappropriated the shareholder's funds under the pretext of legitimate corporate functions and allocations. Elements of favoritism can be seen in the way the CEO, Dennis Kozlowski awarded loans from the Tyco coffers to himself and Frank Walsh without seeking the approval of the board. This was viewed as corrupt and a direct violation of the various responsibilities accorded to the board of directors by the shareholders and investors. According to Stanwick and Stanwick (2009), the CEO and the other board of directors were corrupted by the power and influence that they had in the company. The major issues presented in the case

White collar crimes

White collar crime was defined by Sutherland (1939) as a crime that is committed by an individual of high social status and respectability in the course of his or her occupation. This is evident in the manner in which Dennis Kozlowski used his position as the CEO of Tyco to embezzle funds and evade tax in the purchase of paintings for his houses. According to CIMA (2009) fraud involves the employment of deceptive means to make an individual make a personal gain in a dishonest manner or to create a loss for another person or corporate entity. Generally fraud can be used to denote activities like theft, conspiracy, corruption, money laundering, embezzlement as well as bribery. This is evident in the case study especially when Dennis Kozlowski, the Tyco CEO evaded tax and tampered with corporate financial records. Dennis Kozlowski also conspired with several art dealers based in New York to ship empty boxes to the headquarters of Tyco and in the process avoiding a 8.25% city as well as state tax and in actual sense the $13 million paintings (Monet, Renoir) that the boxes were declared to contain were instead delivered to his apartment at 5th Avenue. This is corporate fraud at its best.

Sentencing

The penalties for the white collar crimes are different and they range from fines, forfeitures, prosecution, restitution, imprisonment and even supervised release (The Attorney Store, n.d ).It is pointed out in certain cases that the term and length of sentencing may be reduced in cases where the defendants assist the authorities with the investigation.
What do you think Kozlowski's motivation for trying to avoid sales taxes on his art purchases was?

I believe Kozlowski's motivation for trying to avoid sales taxes on his art purchases was driven by his urge to own the paintings ( a sign of opulence and elegance of which he was noted for).Halperin (n.d) pointed out that he had hoped to display his paintings at the opening of an art gallery called Madison Avenue gallery. He had hoped to do this himself so as to get him occupied after a highly celebrated as well as distinguished retirement from the company (Tyco). The fact that he was rich and powerful could have also acted as a motivation. After all, power corrupts leaders. Kozlowsk indeed went against his own will and doctrine of doing the right thing. He instead used his position and authority to orchestrate some of the worst white-collar crimes in the global history. In reality however, Kozlowski was never since he knew very well that the loans as well as the relocation programs were orchestrated falsely. His disloyalty can also be noted in the manner in which he used his position as the CEO to evade task and Explain the concept of commingling assets with respect to the Tyco case

To commingle means to mix together. According to Investor Words (n.d), commingled funds refers to a mutual fund including assets sourced from various accounts that are pooled together so as to effectively reduce the cost of administration and management. In the case of Tyco, Kozlowski was charged with commingling the funds that he obtained in an apparent breach of the…