Scenario 2.1: Misinterpretation Mishap

Tony is a project leader at a company frequently subcontracted to produce code for

various government entities and affiliates. Traditionally, code that was developed for one

federal department could be reused for another if approval was obtained by the former.

One day, Tony's company was contacted by a privately-owned commercial corporation,

FlyHigh, to create code for an avionics-related image processing effort. Since the code

requested was almost identical to one used for a past project, Tony's team decided to, once

approval had been obtained from the government, reuse the code.

After permission was granted through email, however, Tony realized the approving

party, a law agency that was contracted by the government, lacked complete

understanding of who would benefit from the reused code.

Tony wanted to contact the government directly to ensure it had been informed of all

vital aspects of the contract but realized doing so could mean having the initial approval

revoked, having to re-code the requested code, and increasing the contract bid up to two

million dollars.

Understanding the contract between his company and FlyHigh was on the line, should

Tony move forward with clarifying the situation to the appropriate party?

what should be the ethical course of action and what can be the legal and professional law factors tony would be breaking if he continues to proceed. please give examples in terms of acts and crimes he might find himself in.