AT&T just might be the next poster child for ethics and compliance gone seriously wrong, if the allegations before it ultimately prove to be true.

The damning exposé against the telecommunications and media giant comes in the form of a 233-page amended securities class-action complaint, In Re AT&T/DirecTV Now Securities Litigation, filed jointly by law firms Labaton Sucharow and Pomerantz on Sept. 17 in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...