Ethics Newsline®

Cynthia Cooper profiled by TIME magazine

NEW YORK
TIME magazine last week profiled WorldCom whistleblower Cynthia Cooper, who was instrumental in exposing the accounting fraud that eventually brought down the company and led to the imprisonment of five executives.

TIME, noting that many whistle-blowers become isolated, depressed, and unemployed, asked Cooper whether she would do it again.

“Yes, I would,” she told the magazine. “I really found myself at a crossroads where there was only one right path to take.”

Asked if she sees parallels between WorldCom and the gigantic bank fraud unfolding at Société Générale, Cooper observes: “Frauds typically start small and then they begin to grow. People rationalize their decisions. It will be interesting to see if there was collusion involved. That’s one of the commonalities across all these big frauds we’ve seen: There is collusion — and it is has gone in most of these cases up to the very highest levels of the company. That is how you bypass controls.”

Cooper is the author of a new book, Extraordinary Circumstances: Journey of a Corporate Whistleblower.

Sources: TIME, Feb. 4.

For more information, see: Related Newsline story, July 31, 2006 — Related Newsline story, June 26, 2006 — Related Newsline story, Jan. 2, 2006 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 26, 2005 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 15, 2005.