Ethics is a key area for international business regulation. Unfortunately ethics vary by culture. The black market is an exchange without ethics and business scandals are when ethics are compromised for profit or gain.
Many people consider the sale of potentially harmful substances like tobacco, alcohol, firearms, as un-ethical or at the very least “dirty” business. They may be part of the legal market but they are not looked upon favorably by many governments and are also strongly associated with the back market. People also sometimes include oil as a problematic business because of dependency.
Tobacco
The US is targeting Africa for tobacco exportation
The US, Russia, Germany and France lead the world in gun production and exportation, providing the weapons to other countries.
-The “black market” is the underground economy without a nation state
-The black market is always unstable in price, you may get something cheaper or more expensive because you do not know a fair legal price. Some people say it is a free economy but other argues it is really controlled by gang systems that control the price.
-It is usually associated with illegal goods like drugs and prostitution but can also beendangered animal skins and furs, gemstones, weapons and fake or counterfeit luxury goods.
- Some countries legalize certain things that then become involved in black market international business because they are illegal elsewhere. The nations with the largest problem black market business are Thailand, China, Germany, Columbia, Egypt, Venezuela, India, Mexico, Nigeria and others.
Organized crime leads black market business
-Racketeering is illegal business of crime groups that often includes the black market
-Extortion is when an organized crime group charges people for protection out of their fear.
Counterfeiting
Any time a good is sold under a certain mark that is not accurate, it is counterfeit.
The basic guidelines are
1-Unauthorized use of a trademark, partial or complete imitation of a trademark owned by others
2-Product substitution - Unauthorized reproduction of a trademark on a product not manufactured by the brand owning that particular trademark
3 - Illegal reproduction, as in digital copies that are sold as original
Fakes are not just limited to luxury goods but reach all price points of the market. See Fakes!:
Scandals can very from harm to individuals to theft and deception. A nation state is held accountable for illegal business happening within its territory. Africa has a record of issues with smuggling. The US has had increasing issues with fraud and falsified financial investments.
Diamond Trade & Africa and Europe
Sierra Leone and other regions of Africa oppressed workers into diamond mining at a low pay rate while selling the diamonds at high costs. This caused internal wars and black market trading within the countries.http://www.cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/africa/01/18/diamonds.overview/index.html
http://www.portfolio.com/news-markets/international-news/portfolio/2008/09/18/UBS-Diamond-Smuggling-Scandal
Perhaps even older than diamond issues is the demand and trade of ivory which puts animals at risk.
Nation states may also uncover business scandal related to fraud as in false accounting, tax evasion and bribery. This has increased in the US in recent years.
Enron was a speculative energy company, emphasizing energy futures that filed bankruptcy in 2001. It had estimated value at $100 billion dollars and 22,000 employees but it was all based on un-checked false accounting fraud. Many people blamed the US government for allowing such a large company to develop without ever being more thoroughly checked which also involved major accounting firms like Anderson.
More on scandals: http://www.slate.com/id/2063685/
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