17 SEPTEMBER 1994, Page 29

Ethics girl

MY TEST case for business ethics comes not from Body Shop but from New York. I have it at first hand from a City banker who, wanting to meet his opposite number on Wall Street, arranged to take her out to dinner. At the rendezvous he was greeted and joined by a handsome young woman, a martini later they had strolled out to the restaurant, and there my friend suggested that they might talk business first. She did, specifying in dramatic detail what she was prepared to do for him and on what terms. When my friend tried to explain that there had been some mistake, she put a firm hand on his knee (so he says) and told him to pass her $200 in cash before she screamed the place down and claimed harassment. With help from American Express he raised the money and returned to the rendezvous, where he found a rather restive banker on her second martini. As my friend rightly says, his experience raises an ethical question of the first magnitude. it is this: how is he to explain the $200 in his expense account?