Bribery

Bribery is possible to be widely practised in different areas ranging from politics,

sports, medicine, and business. In the business context, Transparency International
organization define bribery as an offer in the various forms including gift, loan, fee, reward,
or other advantage to or from person as a temptation to perform action which is dishonest,
illegal or trust breaking in nature. [i] However, there is no universal term for bribery because
of the variation among cultures among the nation in term of society perception, the context
and circumstances of bribery. [ii] Despite that, it is commonly undeniable the fact that bribery
is considered as illegal in the provision of the country law in most countries and it is seen as a
crime. In other words, under the exact same circumstances where a business action raises
ethical issues of bribery, each society or nation may have different judgement because bribery
is defined differently in different legal system or cultural environment.
In order to identify whether there is bribery occurs in particular situation, Stuart P.
Green (2007) proposed a working definition through example. X who is a bribee is bribed by
Y who is a briber, if and only if all 3 conditions are fulfilled. First, X accepts, or agrees to
accept, something of value from Y. Second, in exchange for something valuable, X perform
or agree to perform, in assisting Y achieving his/her interest. Third, such performance violate
some duty of loyalty owed by X from X's office, position, or involvement in some practice.
Under such illustration, Stuart P.Green further point out 2 key issues in the bribery.
First, how bribes differ from gifts, tips, and donations. In order to address first issues, bribes
can be easily differentiated conceptually as it engages an agreement to trade something of
value in return for influence, whereas gifts, tips, and donation do not involve such agreement.
In other words, a bribe involves 2 parties in a bilateral agreement where mutual agreement is
reached. In contrast, bribes, gifts, tips, rewards, and donations are unilateral; they are given
willingly without any agreement. Although, both terms have distinctive conceptual
difference, however, it may be ambiguous if practically applied. For example, rewards for
some service that have been provided or rendering an action in expectation of something in
return.
Second, what does it indicate for the briber to give the bribee 'something of value' in return.
Something in value does not typically means financial rewards such as cash, shares, it could
refer to broad range of non-financial rewards, such as job security, promotion, a dinner meal,
or even sexual favours.

Apart from the working definition through example, bribe can be defined in many
ways. Bribery can also be viewed in 2 ways which are bribery according to rule and bribery
against the rule. Bribery according to rule is where a briber paid to receive better treatment
that the bribee is required to conduct by law. Such term also known as facilitation payments,
and usually the bribe amount is small or insignificant in nature. One of the most common
example is bribe given by a business to a government officer to speed up the performance of
existing duty. Although it is considered as part of bribery, but evidences consistently prove
that it is not illegal in nature. (Philips, 2013). On the other hand, bribery against the rule is
where a bribe is paid to receive better treatment that the bribee is forbidden from doing. Such
exchange normally is larger in amount because necessary bearing of risk to violate the laws
and regulation. For example, a business that was caught violating the law pay money to
prosecuting officer in order to avoid jurisdiction by court.