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Bribery

Bribery is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty and to incline the individual to act contrary to their duty and the known rules of honesty and integrity.[1] With regard to governmental operations, essentially, bribery is "Corrupt solicitation, acceptance, or transfer of value in exchange for official action."[2] Bung is British slang for a bribe.[3]

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 legal 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.[4]


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.[5]


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.[6][7] If severe punishment works in one country, it doesn't necessarily mean that severe punishment would work in another country to prevent bribery.[7] Also, the research found that bribery plays a significant role in public and private firms around the world.[8]

Bribery in different countries[edit]

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.[6] Papuans don't consider bribery as an illegal act, they considered bribery as a way of earning "quick money and sustain living".[6] 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.[6][17]


The research conducted in Russia reflects that "bribery is a marginal social phenomenon" in the view of professional jurists and state employees.[7] The Russian law recognizes bribery as an official crime.[7] Consequently, legal platforms such as public courts are the only place where anti-bribery steps are taken in the country.[7] However, in reality, bribery cannot be addressed only by the "law-enforcement agencies and the courts".[7] Bribery needs to be addressed by informal social norms that set cultural values for the society. Also, the research suggests that the severity of punishment for bribery does very little to prevent people from accepting bribes in Russia.[7] Moreover, the research also revealed that a large number of Russians, approximately 70% to 77% have never given a bribe.[7] Nevertheless, if a need arises to pay a bribe for a problem, the research found that an overwhelming majority of Russians knew both what the sum of the bribe should be and how to deliver the bribe.[7] The Russian bribe problem reflects that unless there is an active change in all parts of society among both young and old, bribery will remain a major problem in Russian society, even when government officials label it as "marginal social phenomenon".[7]


For comparison amongst countries, Transparency International used to publish the Bribe Payers Index, but stopped in 2011.[18][19] Spokesperson Shubham Kaushik said the organisation "decided to discontinue the survey due to funding issues and to focus on issues that are more in line with our advocacy goals".[20]

Trade[edit]

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.[8] 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.[8] Second, the home country's import decreases, because domestic firms lose interest in foreign markets, and minimize their import from other countries.[8] 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".[17] Additionally, other findings show that, in comparison to public firms, private firms pay most bribes abroad.[17]

Medicine[edit]

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.[21] 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.[22] 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; somewhat ironically, dentists in a television commercial will 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.[23][24]

Republican, American Vice President who resigned from office in the aftermath of discovery that he took bribes while serving as Governor of Maryland.[40]

Spiro Agnew

former President of the United Nations General Assembly (2013-2014) and key negotiator for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), was arrested 6 October 2015[41] and charged, along with five others, in a criminal complaint involving receiving bribes from Macau casino and real estate developer Ng Lap Seng.

John William Ashe

Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Amir and Salman Butt, Pakistani cricketers found guilty of accepting bribes to bowl no-balls against England at certain times.

Pakistan cricket spot-fixing controversy

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.[42]

Duke Cunningham

former New York Supreme Court Justice, convicted of accepting bribes to manipulate outcomes of divorce proceedings.

Gerald Garson

Republican, former congressman from California's 40th district, convicted of accepting bribes.

Andrew J. Hinshaw

Democrat, former congressman from South Carolina's 6th district, convicted of accepting a bribe in the FBI's Abscam operation.

John Jenrette

clothing retailer, was found guilty of making illegal payments and giving gifts to foreign officials in an attempt to circumvent customs inspections and paperwork.[43]

Ralph Lauren

former South Korean president was found guilty of accepting nearly $6 million bribes from Samsung in exchange for a presidential pardon for Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee.[44]

Lee Myung-Bak

Republican, former congressman from Ohio's 8th district, charged with delinquency of a minor and convicted of bribery and conspiracy.

Donald "Buz" Lukens

former U.S. federal judge convicted of accepting bribes.

Martin Thomas Manton

Republican, former congressman from Arizona's 1st district, found guilty of 17 counts including wire fraud, conspiracy, extortion, racketeering, and money laundering.

Rick Renzi

(Italian for "city of bribes") was a huge bribery scandal in early 1990s Italy, which brought down the whole system of political parties, when it was uncovered by the Mani pulite investigations. At one point roughly half of members of parliament were under investigation.

Tangentopoli

Democrat, former Massachusetts state senator pleaded guilty to eight counts of attempted extortion.

Dianne Wilkerson

Former speaker of the Ohio house was on the trial for his part in the biggest bribery scandal in Ohio history on 24 January 2023. Prosecutors accused him of taking $60m in bribes as corruption to pass a million-dollar bailout for Firstenergy [45]

Larry Householder

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the : Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bribery". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.

public domain