Legal & Ethical Scenarios

Legal Scenarios

Select two of the scenarios.  Support your responses with appropriate cases, laws, and other relevant examples by using at least one scholarly source from the SUO Library in addition to your textbook for each scenario. Do not copy the scenario text into the paper. Label the beginning of each scenario with the number you selected (e.g., Scenario 1). Cite your sources in APA format on a separate page. Submit your document to the Submissions Area by the due date assigned.

Scenario 1:  Business Competition

BRG  of Georgia and BARMAX,  located in Illinois are the nation’s two largest providers of bar review materials and lectures that are designed to help students study and pass the bar exam for their state.

 BARMAX began offering Georgia bar review course on a limited basis in 2006 and was in direct, and often intense, competition with BRG from 2007 to 2009 when the companies were the two main providers of bar review courses in Georgia. In early 2010, they entered into an agreement that gave BRG an exclusive license to market BARMAX materials in  and to use its trade name Bar/Bri. The parties agreed that BARMAX would not compete with BRG in Georgia and that BRG would not compete with BARMAX outside of Georgia. Under the agreement, BARMAX  received $100 per student enrolled by BRG and 40 percent of all revenues over $350. Immediately after the 2010 agreement, the price of BRG’s course was increased from $150 to more than $400. 

Is their conduct illegal under federal antitrust laws?

Scenario 2:  Administrative Agencies and Ethics

Brian Day is the vice president of new technology development at Future Electronics in Southaven Mississippi.  One year ago, he filed an application with the Federal Communications Commission to obtain approval for a new device using satellite technology.  Brian met Jenice Brown at an electronics convention two months ago and invited her to his room at the hotel.  The two parted ways. Brown worked as the director for licensing approval of new products at the FCC.  Two weeks later, Brown wrote Day a letter on FCC letterhead stating, “It was nice to see your name cross my desk on your company’s application for approval of the new satellite device.  I’d really like to see you again.  Why don’t you come visit me in Washington this weekend?”

Day considered requesting that the petition be referred to another director at the FCC.  However, he is concerned that the  transfer would delay the approval process for at least a year.  Day’s chief engineer advised that a key competitor plans to introduce a similar device on the market in three months. 

Are there any legal or ethical barriers to relationships between corporate officers and members of administrative agencies involved in reviewing or regulating corporate activity?

What should Day do?   

What would you advise Day to do if you were head of human resources or legal counsel for Future Electronics?

Scenario 3:  International Law

Reliable Time Inc. imported a shipment of watches into the United States. The watches contained the mark “Lauren” which is a registered trademark owned by Ralph Lauren. U.S. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seized the watches pursuant to the Tariff Act, which authorizes seizure of any “merchandise bearing a counterfeit mark.” Ralph Lauren did not make or sell watches at the time of the seizure. Reliable argued that because Ralph Lauren did not make watches at the time of the seizure, the watches it imported were not counterfeit, and the civil penalty imposed by CBP was unlawful. The government argued that the mark was counterfeit and that the Tariff Act does not require the owner of the registered mark to make the same type of goods as those bearing the offending mark. 

Decide the outcome for the case by providing support from scholarly sources such as the textbook, journal articles, cases and information from the CBP website.