Abstract

The Australian Legal System

The States including the self-governing Territories in the North and Capital Territory, which are subject to the overriding Commonwealth's have plenary constitutional powers to make laws that would maintain order and peace in the in the states or the territories that they are made in. This means that most the laws in section 51 are concurrent while the one in the next section are very exclusive to the commonwealth. This further explains that the states can make legislations in the aforementioned areas as long as there is inconsistent with the federal law and this also falls under division of powers. However, a situation where the high court has been largely involved in the interpretation of the constitution has led to a marked increase in the commonwealth powers thus the executive at the expense of the territorial and statutory powers (Whitmore, 2009). The Australian parliament is the arm of the government that makes laws and supervises all the other arms of the federal government and can make changes to the laws if it deems appropriate. The parliament is bi cameral meaning that it consists of a queen, a senate that has seventy six members and house of representative members who are 150 in number. There are two types of senators in the parliament; the state senators and the territory senators and the territory ones are elected using the preferential voting meaning that their term in office is not fixed. The territory senators are more influential in the national decision making because they represent a larger number of citizens that the state senators.

A contract of sale is a contract that’s legal for the exchange of goods property or services from the vendor to the purchaser for a value that is agreed upon and they are, without doubt, both the most common and the most important of all commercial contracts. It is an ancient exchange practice recognized by the common laws but the Australian statutory law now recognizes it. The sale of goods contract of 1896 was designed to ensure that the transactions between merchants are straightforward (Salanie, 2003). The most basic application of the contract of sale is the simple transfer of property, goods or services for a monetary consideration that may involve one part owner and another part owner. This means that there are two levels of a contract of sale; absolute and conditional.

A sale contract occurs when the property is transferred from a vendor to a purchaser while an agreement to sell is when the contract of sale does not occur immediately, and it is given a future consideration. This means that an agreement to sell becomes a sale after the time span indicated in the agreement elapses. In every transaction that involves the transfer of good s, property and services for monetary consideration, the contract of sale must be involved whether consciously or subconsciously and this capacity to make purchase or conduct sales is usually regulated by the general Australian law under the sales act of 1806. There are even laws that govern contracts of sales made to people who are incapacitated, like the drunks, mad people or even minors who may not have the mental capacity to understand the details of the contract. Most common contracts of sale today are usually done in writing and the writing can be with or without a seal.

There are others, albeit in few cases that are made by word of mouth or a combination of the two methods. The law is however different when it comes to contracts of sale and the corporations (Fitzgerald, 2006). The goods that are involved in the contract of sale may be already in existent or may be manufactured or processed later after the contract is made and in the act, this is usually referred as future goods. There may be a contract of sale of goods where the sale depends on the contingency and this may not materialize meaning that in case a contract of sale is purported to effect a present sale of a good that is not already in existence the contract is not yet a contract of sale but an agreement to sell which means that there are chances that it may not materials. The contract becomes void if the goods which the seller and the buyer are transacting have perished without the knowledge of the seller prior to the making of the contract. However, if they perish after an agreement to sell is made; the risk is usually passed to the buyer according to the law. One of the most important factors in a contract of sale is pricing and the price may be fixed by the contract of left blank to be decided by the vendor and the buyer depending on circumstantial considerations in the course of dealership between the two transacting parties (Terry, 2003). Another famous instance in the modern days still under contract of sale is the agreement to sell goods using terms where the price will be fixed by a third party valuation and if that third party cannot make a valuation, the agreement is usually avoided. If the third party is prohibited from making the valuation because of fault of the vendor or the purchaser, the third party usually may seek damages from the two parties at fault. According to the Australian laws, a contract of sale is always subject to a condition that must be fulfilled by the seller and the buyer may decide to waive the condition or even treat that condition as a breach of contract depending on how the seller behaves especially if it is an agreement to sell.

The law in the case of a breach of a contract of sale is condition gives repudiations or warranties and ant party can claim for damages arising form the breach but this depends on the construction of the contract and the stipulations that were laid down when the contract was being made. This means that the contact is not severable and the buyer has to accept the goods once the contact is signed and any illogical grounds for rejecting it may lead to the treating of the contract as repudiated (Salanie, 2003). The implied terms in a contract of sale is that the goods are free and they remain free until a time shall come when the property passes to the buyer and the buyer is entitled to enjoy quiet possession of the good unless he or she is intercepted by the seller or any other party related to the contract.

One of the most common contracts of sale is the hire purchase (Cossa, 2008). Hire purchase is a close ended leasing and occurs in situation where the buyer cannot afford to pay the price that the seller has quoted at one go or in a lump sum but can afford to pay a fraction of the price as a deposit followed monthly rent figures called installments. In this case, the buyer gains possession of the property before he or she settles the full amount but the seller gets a percentage higher of the original price when the full amount is paid after the agreed period because the hire purchase price is always higher than the ordinary cash price. In most circles, hire purchase is referred to as installment plans or rent to own. In case the buyer does not honor the payment as agreed in the contract, the seller is allowed by the terms in the contract to repossess the property without refunding the deposit and the installments already paid. This is because the contract is even recognized by the law and the action the seller will take will be in accordance with the law.

Ethics

Business ethics is also known as corporate ethics and it is applied to examine the principles of ethics that arise in business atmosphere and it applies to every aspect of how a business conducts itself. The conduct of individuals in a business, position notwithstanding is relevant in the analysis of business ethics in a certain entity. Ethicism is the focus on ethical processes of business especially in the conscience focused 21^st century business environment where pressure is being applied unto businesses to improve on how they conduct themselves ethically. This is because, the gains that are made when a business acts in an unethical manner are short term but the long term effects can be highly detrimental. Most businesses act ethically for a variety of reasons especially avoidance of fines and litigation, improving the reputation in the public realm, protecting the investments of the share holders, and to also protect the market share of the business. An ethical business has a competitive advantage over unethical ones especially because internal corruption is not condoned in such a business.

Unethical Practices at Boeing

One of the companies that have been riddled by a myriad of unethical practices in the recent past is the leading plane maker, Boeing of the United States (NY Times,2003). These unethical practices range from illegal business deals, accounting malpractices and illicit sexual liaisons involving top executives. The latest blemish on the waning reputation of the aero maker is the sentencing of four years to prison of the chief financial officer at Boeing, Mr. Mike Sears for secretly negotiating with procurement officer at the US air force to lease about 100 planes to be modified so that they can become tankers.

The investigations into this illicit deal have cost the government more than 2.5 million dollars. This is one of the most high profile corruption cases that would have cost the government and the taxpayers at large billions of dollars had the secret deal gone though. The public outcry towards the revelations was sharp and acerbic because it exposed the underbelly of Boeing which in the past has had a clean record shying away from various controversies that have tainted a variety of companies in the United States of America.

In 2003, Phillip Condit was forced to resign because of widespread criticism against Boeing because of unethical business practices in a series of ethical lapses that has hit the worlds leading aero maker. The resignation was as a result of a lawsuit filed by its competitor, Lockheed, that resulted in pentagon canceling contracts of more than $1 billion that were supposed to be awarded to Boeing and the company was also disqualified from making bids for defense projects for two years. This is because it was found out that the company had been spying on the competitor in a manner that was likely to affect the market presence of the latter.

These revelations also brought under scrutiny the tanker project that Boeing had a deal with the US air force. The pressure from the media forced the pentagon to review the deal actually at the negotiation stage. Two top executives had been sacked prior to the resignation of Condit. These top executive had been involved in human resource malpractices where underhand methods were used to hire some top accounting personnel in order to conceal some unethical accounting malpractices that would have seen the government lose billions in revenue from the multi billion dollar aero company. A few months later, the CEO who took over from Condit was also forced to resign after an illicit sexual liaison with a junior female staff that brought the reputation of the company down. Harry Stonecipher did not even make a year at the helm of the embattled air craft manufacturer before he was forced out because of an improper relationship with the female officer. Though the relationship did not have an impact on any business of the company, the revelation of the relationship with the executive young enough to be his daughter is enough to dent the image of the company already grappling with bad publicity due to an upsurge of unethical behaviors.

A CEO is supposed to be the one leading in upholding any ethic that is laid out by the company and the conduct of Mr. Stonecipher, did not reflect that of someone who is supposed to lead the way in ensuring that high levels of corporate ethics are followed in the company. It is also a bad example to the young members of the public who are looking up to influential figures like Mr. Stonecipher for motivation and inspiration. The public expects a person holding the position like that to be of unquestionable integrity and ethics and morality which means that Mr. Stonecipher has terribly failed the test and as such cannot be entrusted to hold such a position of public importance. These ethical lapses have brought down the credibility of this are manufacturer down and there has been a lot of media and public scrutiny on the corporate governance of the company. This because Boeing is a blue chip company, a trendsetter in the aviation industry and one of the historical industrial masterpieces in the United States. This means that this is a pride of the nation and any bit of negative development is bound to raise public outcry.

There is the accepted code that the CEOs and the top executives of the company were supposed to adhere to that they did not. Staring with the cancelled deal with the US air force, the CEO was supposed handle the deal in a manner that does not betray the corporate image of the company. However, the CEO decided to use underhand methods of spying onto the operations of its main competitor thus compromising it’s the company’s image that is supposed to be without blemish (NY Times,2003). There is no problem if the US air force decided to split the tender and award it to the two rival company but sending officers on an espionage mission to the rival firm in order to scrutinize all their business deals was a contravention of the fair play policy and raised questions about the credibility of Condit as a CEO who was supposed to lead Boeing out of the woods.

The public expects an all round perfection in any company that is in business because if the way the company is being administered is questionable, then even the process of making the goods or providing some services will be in doubt.(Garland,2009) In the mind of the public are a myriad of unanswered question because what has been unearthed about Boeing may be just a fraction of the rot that is in the company and this decay may compromise the company’s efficiency in providing the world class technology that is famed for. This will subsequently dent the competitive advantage that Boeing has been having internationally and giving its competitors space to catch up and even take its market share. The effect of this unethical behavior can be evidenced by the gradual dip of the share prices of the Boeing Company at the local stock market (NY Times, 2003).

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