Business Ethics

You are a Regional Assistant Vice President in charge of Sales of a national company. While at a baseball game with some colleagues, one of your coworkers, who is also a comparable Regional Assistant Vice President and is 48 years of age, tells you, when you offer to buy him a beer, that he is a recovering alcoholic, has been involved with AA for ten years and has been drink free for nine of those years. He asks that you keep this information in confidence, since he did not disclose this information to the company at the time of his hire. Several months later, you are told that you are up for consideration to become National Vice President of Sales. You are also told that your only competition is the other Regional Assistant Vice President, who shared that he was a recovering alcoholic. You truly want this position and know that it requires a lot of travel and client entertainment. You are somewhat friendly with one of the H/R Vice Presidents. Do you mention to that person in passing that your competitor told you that he had a drinking problem, knowing full well that release of this type of information would be the kiss of death to his candidacy (in light of the requirement for extensive travel and heavy client social/ interaction). Why or Why not? Please support your answer with legal reasoning.