How do we obtain information?

I recently read this post by Karol Sheinin over at Michelle Malkin's blog. It mentions this article in The Guardian newspaper out of London that says that much of the information obtained relating to the recent raids in the UK was via torture. I don't know that this has been proven, but there are some claiming that this is the case.

Karol makes the statement that she has no problem with this as it saves the lives of innocent people. I don't bring this to your attention in order to discuss the ethical use of torture, but rather to ask how the issue of obtaining information might pertain to organizational life.

For example if a company illegally receives information from a competitor (perhaps from paying off someone who works for the competitor) that ultimately ends up saving the jobs of hundreds of employees, would this be acceptable? Is there any situation in which an organization should break the law in order to ensure the stability of the company?

I realize that using torture to save innocent lives (whether you agree with that or not) is quite different on many levels than the example that I provided. (Saving a life is quite different than saving someone's job) Yet I bring this up because I wonder if those who think that using torture in this case is warranted would also agree that it is OK for organizations to break the law in order to save jobs. Thoughts?