Explanation

The “Unlike” at the beginning of the sentence and the “not to” that follows the dash set up a contrast between the relatively innocent problems in the current case and the issues involved in the “recent financial scandals.” Clearly, these latter issues must have involved wrongdoing. Looking at the second blank, only transactions designed to “cloak” corporate malfeasance would qualify: both ameliorating and illuminating malfeasance are positive actions. For the first blank, only “sham” fits; “unpremeditated” or “justifiable” transactions could not be designed to cloak malfeasance.

Thus, the correct answer is sham (Choice A) and cloak (Choice D).
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Sandy
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The financial and economic passages are among the worst. I am not a fan of those kinds of topics, and they are actually more difficult than others. They say that you have to "feign enthusiasm" (i.e. pretend to love) GRE passages if you want to do well on them, but you need to call a spade a spade here...if you don't like something, you need to show it! In fact, some of these questions actually do require you to have some kind of knowledge of economic or financial terminology if you are to get the question correct. That's very unethical for the test writers to do, especially when you're not going for a master's in accounting, business, finance, etc. That's why we have the GMAT, right? Leave these kinds of questions for the GMAT and not the GRE!