ABSTRACT
In the spring of 1998, an administrative assistant in Merck’s Corporate Communications Department tried to fax an eighteen-page, confidential internal memorandum on the planned restructuring of the company’s relationship with Astra, the Swedish pharmaceutical firm, to an outside investment banker counseling Merck. The machine jammed and she pushed what she thought was the “redial” button, but inadvertently sent the fax to e Star Ledger, New Jersey’s largest newspaper. To her credit, she told her boss, John Doorley, immediately, and John knew he had to contact his boss, Ken Frazier, senior vice president and general counsel.
