Berman vs department of interior case Term Paper

Berman vs department of interior case - Term Paper Example erman undertakes to bring the culprits to book by aiding POGO in drafting the draft Freedom of Information Act (â€Å"FOIA†) which allowed them to file for two qui tam actions in the United States District Court. As a result, they were paid $440m from the litigation. This was the value of the royalties owed by the oil companies. POGO had already promised to pay a third of the money they will be paid after the litigation and thus when the money was compensated, POGO sent a check of $383,600 to Berman and enclosed therein an indication that the money was an award for his dedication and not for payment of his services. Alter on, the Department of the Interior sued Berman for violation of ethical obligation and breach of fiduciary duty. The perpetrators in this case were the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and Berman. The societal values they violated was the compensation of the $383,600 check out of the $440 million which was meant to be for the royalties which were underpaid to the federal and Indian lands by the oil companies. They should have given the money to them instead of suing it. Organizational values which were violated in this case were the payment of lump sum money to a government employee for tasks done for the government apart from the salary. Thus, POGO should not have given Berman the check since he was already doing his job. Berman’s ethical obligation concerning oil royalty matters was to deliver the paid money to the underpaid federal and Indian lands by the oil companies. There are competing obligations in this case since the money paid to Berman was meant to be an award for his decision for his work in the past decade while the punishment in this case should be applied to paymen ts given to government especially for future work (Denhardt, 1988). The obligation of the non-public officials in this case was to ensure there was no mismanagement of public resources or abuse of power. They owed this obligation to the public since they were