Bribery

Bribery is the corrupt solicitation, payment, or acceptance of a private favor (a bribe) in exchange for official action.[1][2] The purpose of a bribe is to influence the actions of the recipient, a person in charge of an official duty, to act contrary to their duty and the known rules of honesty and integrity.

Gifts of money or other items of value that are otherwise available to everyone on an equivalent basis, and not for dishonest purposes, are not bribery. Offering a discount or a refund to all purchasers is a rebate and is not bribery. For example, it is legal for an employee of a Public Utilities Commission involved in electric rate regulation to accept a rebate on electric service that reduces their cost of electricity, when the rebate is available to other residential electric customers; however, giving a discount specifically to that employee to influence them to look favorably on the electric utility's rate increase applications would be considered bribery.

A bribe is an illegal or unethical gift or lobbying effort bestowed to influence the recipient's conduct. It may be money, goods, rights in action, property, preferment, privilege, emolument, objects of value, advantage, or merely a promise to induce or influence the action, vote, or influence of a person in an official or public capacity.[3] The United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16 has a target to substantially reduce corruption and bribery of all forms as part of an international effort aimed at ensuring peace, justice, and strong institutions.[4]

Society often goes through changes that bring long-lasting positive or negative complications. Similar has been the case with bribery, which brought negative changes to societal norms as well as to trade. The researchers found that when bribery becomes part of social norms, one approach is not enough to tackle bribery due to the existence of different societies in different countries.[5][6] If severe punishment works in one country, it does not necessarily mean that severe punishment would work in another country to prevent bribery.[6] Also, the research found that bribery plays a significant role in public and private firms around the world.[7]

Forms

Many types of payments or favors may be fairly or unfairly labeled as bribes: tip, gift, sop, perk, skim, favor, discount, waived fee/ticket, free food, free ad, free trip, free tickets, sweetheart deal, kickback/payback, funding, inflated sale of an object or property, lucrative contract, donation, campaign contribution, fundraiser, sponsorship/backing, higher paying job, stock options, secret commission, or promotion (rise of position/rank).

One must be careful of differing social and cultural norms when examining bribery. Expectations of when a monetary transaction is appropriate can differ from place to place. Political campaign contributions in the form of cash, for example, are considered criminal acts of bribery in some countries, while in the United States, provided they adhere to election law, are legal. Tipping, for example, is considered bribery in some societies, while in others the two concepts may not be interchangeable.

In some Spanish-speaking countries, bribes are referred to as mordida (literally, "bite"). In Arab countries, bribes may be called baksheesh (a tip, gift, or gratuity) or shay (literally, "tea"). French-speaking countries often use the expressions dessous-de-table ("under-the-table" commissions), pot-de-vin (literally, "wine-pot"), or commission occulte ("secret commission" or "kickback"). While the last two expressions contain inherently a negative connotation, the expression dessous-de-table can be often understood as a commonly accepted business practice. In German, the common term is Schmiergeld ("lubricant money").

Government

A grey area may exist when payments to smooth transactions are made. United States law is particularly strict in limiting the ability of businesses to pay for the awarding of contracts by foreign governments; however, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act contains an exception for "grease payments"; very basically, this allows payments to officials in order to obtain the performance of ministerial acts which they are legally required to do, but may delay in the absence of such payment. In some countries, this practice is the norm, often resulting from a developing nation not having the tax structure to pay civil servants an adequate salary. Nevertheless, most economists regard bribery as a bad thing because it encourages rent seeking behaviour. A state where bribery has become a way of life is a kleptocracy.

Recent evidence suggests that the act of bribery can have political consequences- with citizens being asked for bribes becoming less likely to identify with their country, region and/or tribal unit.[10][11]

Trade

According to researchers, bribery has a major impact on a country's trade system. The key findings suggest two possible outcomes when bribery becomes part of country's export system.[7] First, when firms and government officials are involved in bribery in the home country, the home country's export increases because incentives are gained through bribery.[7] Second, the home country's import decreases, because domestic firms lose interest in foreign markets, and minimize their import from other countries.[7] Also, in another study, it was found that firms are willing to risk paying higher bribes if the returns are high, even if it involves "risk and consequences of detection and punishment". Additionally, other findings show that, in comparison to public firms, private firms pay most bribes abroad.

Medicine

Pharmaceutical corporations may seek to entice doctors to favor prescribing their drugs over others of comparable effectiveness. If the medicine is prescribed heavily, they may seek to reward the individual through gifts.[15] The American Medical Association has published ethical guidelines for gifts from industry which include the tenet that physicians should not accept gifts if they are given in relation to the physician's prescribing practices.[16]

Doubtful cases include grants for traveling to medical conventions that double as tourist trips. Dentists often receive samples of home dental care products such as toothpaste, which are of negligible value; dentists in a television commercial would often state that they get these samples but pay to use the sponsor's product. In countries offering state-subsidized or nationally funded healthcare where medical professionals are underpaid, patients may use bribery to solicit the standard expected level of medical care. For example, in many formerly Communist countries from what used to be the Eastern Bloc it may be customary to offer expensive gifts to doctors and nurses for the delivery of service at any level of medical care in the non-private health sector.[17][18]

Politics

Politicians receive campaign contributions[19] and other payoffs from powerful corporations, organizations or individuals in return for making choices in the interests of those parties, or in anticipation of favorable policy, also referred to as lobbying. This is not illegal in the United States and forms a major part of campaign finance, though it is sometimes referred to as the money loop; however, in many European countries, a politician accepting money from a corporation whose activities fall under the sector they currently (or are campaigning to be elected to) regulate would be considered a criminal offence, for instance the "Cash-for-questions affair" and "Cash for Honours" in the United Kingdom.

A grey area in these democracies is the so-called "revolving door" in which politicians are offered highly-paid, often consultancy jobs upon their retirement from politics by the corporations they regulate while in office, in return for enacting legislation favourable to the corporation while they are in office, a conflict of interest. Convictions for this form of bribery are easier to obtain with hard evidence, a specific amount of money linked to a specific action by the recipient of the bribe. Such evidence is frequently obtained using undercover agents, since evidence of a quid pro quo relation can often be difficult to prove (influence peddling and political corruption).

Recent evidence suggests that demands for bribes can adversely impact citizen level of trust and engagement with the political process.

Business

Employees, managers, or salespeople of a business may offer money or gifts to a potential client in exchange for business. For example, in 2006, German prosecutors conducted a wide-ranging investigation of Siemens to determine if Siemens employees paid bribes in exchange for business.

In some cases where the system of law is not well-implemented, bribes may be a way for companies to continue their businesses. In the case, for example, custom officials may harass a certain firm or production plant, officially stating they are checking for irregularities, halting production or stalling other normal activities of a firm. The disruption may cause losses to the firm that exceed the amount of money to pay off the official. Bribing the officials is a common way to deal with this issue in countries where there exists no firm system of reporting these semi-illegal activities. A third party, known as a "white glove",[20] may be involved to act as a clean middleman. Specialist consultancies have been set up to help multinational companies and small and medium enterprises with a commitment to anti-corruption to trade more ethically and benefit from compliance with the law. Contracts based on or involving the payment or transfer of bribes ("corruption money", "secret commissions", "pots-de-vin", "kickbacks") are void.[21]

In 2012, The Economist noted:

Sport corruption

Referees and scoring judges may be offered money, gifts, or other compensation to guarantee a specific outcome in an athletic or other sports competition. A well-known example of this manner of bribery in the sport would be the 2002 Olympic Winter Games figure skating scandal, where the French judge in the pairs competition voted for the Russian skaters in order to secure an advantage for the French skaters in the ice dancing competition. Additionally, bribes may be offered by cities in order to secure athletic franchises, or even competitions, as happened with the 2002 Winter Olympics. It is common practice for cities to "bid" against each other with stadiums, tax benefits, and licensing deals.[25]

Prevention

The research suggests that government should introduce training programs for public officials to help public officials from falling into the trap of bribery.[26] Also, anti-bribery programs should be integrated into education programs.[26] In addition, government should promote good culture in public and private sectors. There should be "clear code of conducts and strong internal control systems" which would improve the overall public and private system.[26] Furthermore, the research suggests that private and public sectors at home and abroad must work together to limit corruption in home firms and foreign firms.[7] There will be greater transparency and less chances of bribery. Alongside, cross border monitoring should be enhanced to minimize bribery on international level.

Notable instances

• Spiro Agnew, Republican, American Vice President who resigned from office in the aftermath of discovery that he took bribes while serving as Governor of Maryland.[35]
• John William Ashe, former President of the United Nations General Assembly (2013–2014) and key negotiator for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), was arrested 6 October 2015[36] and charged, along with five others, in a criminal complaint involving receiving bribes from Macau casino and real estate developer Ng Lap Seng.
• Pakistan cricket spot-fixing controversy, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and Salman Butt, Pakistani cricketers found guilty of accepting bribes to bowl no-balls against England at certain times.
• Duke Cunningham, United States Navy veteran and former Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from California's 50th Congressional District resigned after pleading guilty to accepting at least $2.4 million in bribes and under-reporting his income for 2004.

By country

The research conducted in Papua New Guinea reflects cultural norms as the key reason for corruption. Bribery is a pervasive way of carrying out public services in PNG.[5] Papuans don't consider bribery as an illegal act, they considered bribery as a way of earning "quick money and sustain living".[5] Moreover, the key findings reflect that when corruption becomes a cultural norm, illegal acts such as bribery are not viewed as bad, and the clear boundaries that once distinguished between legal and illegal acts, and decisions are minimized on opinion, rather than on a code of conduct.[5][41]

The research conducted in Russia reflects that "bribery is a marginal social phenomenon" in the view of professional jurists and state employees.[6] The Russian law recognizes bribery as an official crime.[6]

See also

• Ambitus
• Bid rigging
• Bribe Payers Index
• Charbonneau Commission
• Conflict of interest
• Consciousness of guilt
• Corruption by country
• Foreign Corrupt Practices Act
• Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) of the Council of Europe
• Influence peddling
• ISO 37001 Anti-bribery management systems
• Jury tampering
• Kickback (bribery)
• Largitio
• Legal plunder
• Lobbying