Business and Ethical Issues Involved in the Film "Margin Call"

Margin Call Movie Analysis
Student's Name
Instructor's Name
Institutional Affiliation
Course
Date
Margin Call Movie Analysis
Margin Call is a fictional film about the downfall of a financial firm. As the film plays out, characters like Peter Sullivan, Will, and Eric Dale, among others, face different circumstances requiring them to make certain choices. Naturally, these circumstances present different ethical and business dilemmas, each with significant consequences. This paper seeks to discuss the ethical and business decisions made by characters in the movie while highlighting their consequences and recommending a course of action had I faced the same circumstances.
Ethical Issues in the Film
The moral and ethical standards of the company have been broken, and each person involved chose to do it even though they had a duty to act morally. For example, when the securities were very risky, the company lied and said they were low risk. This unethical behaviour led to the firm's and the economy's disastrous fall. Peter Sullivan tells Eric, the head of trade and a junior employee who is friends with Eric, that his company's debts will soon be more than its assets. Given that he was a junior, this was the right thing to do and the right thing to do from an ethical point of view. Peter had a moral duty to tell the SEC or the Attorney General about the situation when the top staff members knew about it but did nothing.
On the other hand, senior-level employees faced the most moral risk, but they acted unethically to help themselves by telling dealers to sell all worthless assets. They only cared about their professional and personal reputations. They did not care about the dealer's reputation or the reputation of the people who would buy the worthless items. The top executives knew this tragedy could happen, but they chose to ignore it until they were put in a position where the whole company was doomed. It brings up another moral question. Also, the CEO, John Tuld, says that there is a lot of money to be made from crises, which suggests that he is doing things that go against company policy and are unethical.
Eric's dilemma was to pass on his USB key and work to Peter. Peter was to reveal his newly discovered information to someone more senior than him, Will. Will passed this information on to even more powerful employees, who ultimately reviewed the work and shared it with CEO J...