" Incriminating evidence " Marco is a paralegal for a large regional law firm. His company has just landed a new and very important client-Chemco industries, one of the largest employers in the area. Marco's prospects with his firm appear to have taken a major leap, as he has been assigned to support one of the senior partners of the law firm, David Collins, as he prepares to defend Chemco in a lawsuit brought by a group of Chemco shareholders. The lawsuit claims that the senior management of Chemco knew that the firm's financial performance for the second quarter of the year was way below Wall Street expectations. It also knew that the likely reaction to that news would be a dramatic reduction in the price of Chemco shares. In addition, the lawsuit claims that since the stock price would most likely go below the price of the stock options that the board of directors had granted to senior management, those options would be worthless. So rather than let that happen, the Chemco shareholders argue, executives in senior management "massaged the numbers" on the company's true financial performance while selling their own shares in the company and they kept massaging the numbers until they were able to exercise all their stock options. Marco is well aware of the significance of this case and is excited at the prospect of working with David Collins. His first assignment is to review all the correspondence relating to stock transactions by senior executives in order to document exactly when they exercised their stock options and sold their stock. The review is expected to take several days of intensive work. On the third day, Marco comes across a paper copy of an e-mail from David Collins to the CEO of Chemco. Since this would have no relevance to the sale of stock, Marco assumes that the e-mail was misfiled and starts to place the sheet of paper in a separate pile for refiling later. As he does so, one word that is boldface and underlined in the e-mail catches his eye-"problematic". As he reads the e-mail in full, Marco realizes that David Collins is advising the CEO to "ensure that any e-mails or written documentation that could be 'problematic' for their case be removed immediately". Question: (c) What should Marco do now?
" Incriminating evidence "
Marco is a paralegal for a large regional law firm. His company has just landed a new and very important client-Chemco industries, one of the largest employers in the area.
Marco's prospects with his firm appear to have taken a major leap, as he has been assigned to support one of the senior partners of the law firm, David Collins, as he prepares to defend Chemco in a lawsuit brought by a group of Chemco shareholders.
The lawsuit claims that the senior management of Chemco knew that the firm's financial performance for the second quarter of the year was way below Wall Street expectations. It also knew that the likely reaction to that news would be a dramatic reduction in the price of Chemco shares. In addition, the lawsuit claims that since the stock price would most likely go below the price of the stock options that the board of directors had granted to senior management, those options would be worthless. So rather than let that happen, the Chemco shareholders argue, executives in senior management "massaged the numbers" on the company's true financial performance while selling their own shares in the company and they kept massaging the numbers until they were able to exercise all their stock options.
Marco is well aware of the significance of this case and is excited at the prospect of working with David Collins. His first assignment is to review all the correspondence relating to stock transactions by senior executives in order to document exactly when they exercised their stock options and sold their stock. The review is expected to take several days of intensive work.
On the third day, Marco comes across a paper copy of an e-mail from David Collins to the CEO of Chemco. Since this would have no relevance to the sale of stock, Marco assumes that the e-mail was misfiled and starts to place the sheet of paper in a separate pile for refiling later. As he does so, one word that is boldface and underlined in the e-mail catches his eye-"problematic". As he reads the e-mail in full, Marco realizes that David Collins is advising the CEO to "ensure that any e-mails or written documentation that could be 'problematic' for their case be removed immediately".
Question:
(c) What should Marco do now?
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