Bribery in Global Business Case Study

Name: Trang Than

HUID: 702414994                                                         April 22nd, 2017

Case 3: Managing the Risks of global Bribery in Business

A. What are the differences between the provisions of the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and the United Kingdom Bribery Act?

Application: FCPA has narrower area of application than Bribery Act of UK (covers international environment and applies for broader area than FCPA). Facilitation Payments: FCPA allows facilitation payments to support companies in case of hardship of routine transactions, while UK Bribery Act has no allowance for facilitation payments of hardship of routine transactions at first. Afterwards, the facilitation payments are still illegal under Act, but more leniency in practice. Bribery of foreign officials & private/public officials: FCPA specifically concerns with bribing foreign or government officials, while Bribery Act concerns with bribing foreign government, as well as private and public officials or enterprises. Liability: FCPA has a liability relates to accounting provisions for public companies, while Bribery Act has a strict liability to any commercial firm which lacks of control of bribery. Intent: Under FCPA, it must be proved that the person offering the bribe with a corrupt intent, while under the Bribery Act, there’s no requirement to corrupt or improper intent in relation to the bribery of a foreign public official. UK Bribery Act covers both active and passive bribery while FCPA covers the active bribery only.

B. Why companies that have been recently cited for bribery chose to engage in such behavior?

There are many reasons for companies like Walmart and Pfizer to engage in bribery. The first reason should be the government style in difference countries. Walmart in Mexico – the country which has a very high bribery rate easily led to the bribery behavior of companies established under bribery tendency government. Also, the other reason is the cultural difference. Since different countries considers bribery in different ways, international companies easily face the hardship to determine and sync the bribery law in the US. In case of Pfizer, the branch which committed bribery are all in Asia or Europe, where the concept of gifting or payments exchange to increase sales is a part of doing business culture.