Manfold toy company: Corporate governance and ethics for directors and professionals
Focus: conflict of interest
Manfold Toy Company is a plastic bath and water toys manufacturer founded by Joseph Wan. It is also a plastic airbeds producer and has several lines of plastic exercise toys for use in swimming pools. Through years 1983 to 2005 the company did well, from 42 employees they grew to 900 only in 10 years. In 2001, the Manfold was listed in Hong Kong exchange. In 2005, the total revenues amounted hk$918m. As seen in Exhibit 1, Manfold toys were primarily sold in North America (52$), Australia and New Zealand (17,8%), South America (13,7%), and Europe (11,3%). In 2006, the founder of Manfold toys Joseph decide to sell the …show more content…
• Courting Mitchell & Meyer: Maggie Mok, one of the executive directors of Manfold Toy and the owner of Big Capital, shared updated information of the Manfold Toy Company’s situation to the CEO of Mitchell and was informed about possible takeover. Her company was paid for the information and was set to gain another huge amount of money if they would advise a takeover. Maggie Mok, broke the rule of Manfold Toy’s regulations by not revealing her company’s relation to Mitchell. This is contradicting appendix 3 (b) confidentiality of information acquired through business relationships.
• Jiaxong’s Plan: rather than cutting back on service expenses and sourcing materials: using cheap and lower quality materials in order to increase short-term revenues. Through casual nightclub entertainment to recommend themselves to cheap …show more content…
In short term, Manfold did everything to look best with best prices even though they acted unethically, in long term of course everything will show what have been done and Fred really waits this day, as his position in the company can be affected.
• Director of Manfold Toy, Joseph Wan Choi-lon, should have paid more attention to the internal control of operations, which are happening inside his company. Daniel and Jiaxong should have not received total trust and freedom of actions.
• It was unethical to hire people who have studied in the same places and share interests, it will be fine if it was only one person, while in his company all the people in good position are somehow related to him and that was one of the mistakes of the owner of Manfold Toy, as the people he hired, used their interests in order to gain advantage of their deals and operations. He could’ve hire people that are really qualified for the job, and not because their friends, this would not lead to a mess that Manfold is facing