Business ethics and company law: corporate social responsibilities and the duties of directors as provided under the companies act, 2002: the case study of Tanzania breweries limited and TOL limited

This study investigates, among other things, the relationship between business ethics and the company law in tanzania. it establishes that legal norms are one of the essential sources of business ethics and the two concepts are interlinked in a chicken egg fashion. in a nutshell, business ethics can best be realized through enactment and enforcement of adequate and clear laws aiming at promoting business ethics. however, law and ethics may tend to conflict or supersede each other at times. it may happen that what the law permits or requires may not be necessarily ethically right. despite the tendency above, law can be used to endorse ethics. therefore, enacting adequate and clear laws to promote business ethics is very important. the study observes that despite the inclusion of some ethical behaviour provisions in the companies act, 2002, fair competition act, 1994 and the sale of goods act, cap. 214 (r.e 2002), application of business ethics by companies is insufficient. this is due to the reason that statutes are not sufficient and relevant sections on ethics lack clarity it has been further observed that the visited companies lack specific, highly detailed and enforceable codes of business ethics to specify what measures should or should not be enforced and to explicate explicit penalties for unethical behaviors. also lack of organs or regulatory bodies to enforce business ethics impair ethical behaviors among the officers and other members of companies.