The Email That Outed Menendez Summary

The email that outed Menendez was written by Mark McCollum, Halliburton’s Chief Accounting Officer. He sent to the entire accounting team and the top executives of Halliburton. It basically stated that “The SEC has opened an inquiry into the allegations of Mr, Menendez” (Eisinger, 2015). Menendez had no idea how they knew that he had talked with the SEC. The problem was the minute that Menendez sent that email to the audit committee, which was supposed to be confidential, they put two and two together and implicated him as being a traitor. This unethical and illegal abuse of the system ended up making Menendez’s life a living hell. At the time, Menendez did not know that the audit committee had forwarded his email to basically everyone but

Now, he feared for his job, his reputation, and his integrity. Halliburton has a code of ethics but it was clear that they chose to not abide by them. There are integrity standards that every company and its employees have a moral obligation to abide by (Petryni, n.d.). McCollum’s lack of integrity had shown its true colors in previous conversations with Menendez but this email confirmed it. The lack of integrity of Halliburton’s audit committee, KPMG, and even the SEC had also been proven. The only one standing up for what was right was Menendez. His integrity remained intact. His reputation as a whistleblower among Halliburton’s employees was nonexistent, but to those who value the truth, it soared. It was clear that neither Halliburton, KPMG, nor the SEC could be trusted. They did not value

It was a new program specifically designed to pay awards for qualified whistleblower cases (“Dodd Frank Whistleblower Rules - AICPA,” n.d.). However, this was not applied to Menendez’s case because it had not been law until after his case had already started. Then again, he was not looking for money anyway. Only the vindication of his integrity and reputation. The SOX and Dodd-Frank Acts are under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (“Whistleblower Protection Program,” n.d.). There is even an informant award with the Internal Revenue Service (“Whistleblower - Informant Award,”