In my opinion, the press release by John Hall on January 5, 1988, was very good from both an ethical and legal standpoint. In the release, as discussed above, Ashland took responsibility for the costs of the clean up, and also communicated, in as much as possible, the known elements of the cause of the tank failure. Hall did not admit any wrongdoing, and at the time he knew of none. There were some questionable activities involved in the tank construction, and he readily admitted to these. He met both the public's needs for quality of the environment, Ashland's responsibility to bear the cost of the clean up, and met his moral responsibility of being completely honest. He also met his responsibilities to Ashland's stockholders by not saying anything that could be construed as admitting to any crimes that he wasn't sure Ashland committed.…
