Two women have been pilloried in the United States in the past week, one for making a telephone call, the other for sending an e-mail, although it is possible that neither did anything wrong.
The telephone call was made by Martha Stewart. Of all the names that have dominated the business pages in recent corporate scandals, Martha Stewart resonates most with ordinary Americans.
Little known outside the United States, she is one of the "50 Most Powerful Women" in the US (Fortune) and one of "America's 25 Most Influential People" (Time). She has earned two Emmy Awards for her television show, Martha Stewart Living, and her books are bestsellers.
Martha Stewart is the arbiter of taste in everything from clothing to patio furniture for Americans who want to live stylishly. She shows middle-class women how to organise a Hamptons-style dinner party and working women the delights of French copper cookware.
Her world is one of labelled herb gardens, perfect pastry, hand-woven baskets and fresh brown eggs. You either love her or hate her.
There are several websites that satirise the home-making icon. One lists symptoms of the Martha Stewart Disease, such as "you polish every lettuce leaf with a clean white cloth until each one shines like a newly waxed car fender".
One thing Martha Stewart doesn't give advice about is buying and selling stocks, although she was a stockbroker on Wall Street for several years. Her own share dealing has now stained the perfect image. A close friend, Sam Waksal, former chief executive of ImClone, who once dated her daughter Alexis and is now Martha's frequent companion, was arrested last week for insider share-dealing.
Waksal allegedly heard on December 25th that his company would not get approval for development of the wonder drug Erbitux and telephoned family members to sell their ImClone stock super quick. There is a record of a telephone call from Stewart to Waksal around this time.
She denies her call got through, and says she just left a message saying she had heard something was up with ImClone. But she dumped her 4,000 ImClone shares that same day for around $240,000 (€252,871). Next morning the news about Erbitux was made public and ImClone stock bombed. Ms Stewart claims she simply had an arrangement to sell the stock if it dropped below $60.
A Congress committee is now checking with her broker. To the stock-picking public, however, it is another case where the rich somehow manage to get out of stocks just before they crash, while ordinary investors in companies like ImClone, Enron, Global Crossing, Tycon and the like get wiped out.
WHILE the telephone call has damaged Ms Stewart's reputation, in the case of Nancy Temple, a little e-mail had proved to be a dangerous thing. Ms Temple, 38, was an in-house lawyer at Arthur Andersen. The jury in the Andersen trial was asked to find the audit company guilty of obstruction of justice for shredding Enron-related documents. Instead it seized upon an e-mail sent by Ms Temple to Andersen's shredder-in-chief, David Duncan.
Referring to a draft memo to Enron circulated by Duncan, advising the energy company that a forthcoming Enron press release should not contain certain words, Ms Temple recommended "deleting some language that might suggest we have concluded the release is misleading".
This legal advice convinced the jury that Ms Temple was the "corrupt persuader" behind an effort to thwart a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation of Enron's finances, and found Andersen guilty.
Fellow-lawyers are rushing to Temple's defence in op-ed newspaper articles. It was not a crime, she was giving bona fide legal advice to a client, argued Stephen Gillers, vice-dean at New York University School of Law, in yesterday's New York Times.
Whether an appeal will succeed, it will be too late for Andersen, which has disintegrated as a company, and for Ms Temple, who will always be blamed. Mud sticks. Ask Martha Stewart.
Shares in her own company, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, are falling because of the hint of scandal. Even more humiliating, a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser for the Democratic Party she was to host in New York on Monday was cancelled when Senators Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer pulled out.
There is no greater punishment for the perfect hostess than to be snubbed.
The real message is the oldest one a lawyer can give - don't write, don't call, especially if it can be used against you.
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