Does business ethics begin where the law ends?

John C.Maxwell believes that there are three reasons why people make unethical choices in business situations : 1) we do what is most convenient, 2) we do what we must do to win, 3) we rationalise our choices with relativism. Those reasons headed by the fear of losing business and consequently losing profit can lead individuals and companies to make decisions, that, while not illegal, raise concerns about fairness, equity, justice and honesty. Examples do not lack : the despoiling of rivers with industrial pollutants, the exploitation of sweatshop workers, the payment of bribes to governments...
But despite the frequency of occurrence of such examples and recent financial scandals, one should not think that business ethics is an oxymoron. Realization by firms of the importance of ethics in business is visible in many respects. Business ethics has then to be understood as the study of business situations, activities and decisions where issues of right and wrong are addressed. This concept is complex as there is no definite answers to an ethical issue. But if ethics were simple, we could have simple laws. Law is indeed also about right and wrong and offers more definite answers to specific issues. However, law does not cover all situations, and where law has to be observed, there is of course the question of interpretation of that law. For those reasons, it is said that business ethics begins where the law ends. Our aim is to analyse the reality of this affirmation.
We will see in a first part that business ethics begins where the law ends because they are two distinct concepts and that business ethics deals with issues that law does not cover ; and in a second part that business ethics and law are however closely connected and can not be understood in a separate way.

1_ Business ethics and law are two separated concepts and business ethics deals with issues that law does not cover :

The first