Baksheesh or Bribe: Cultural Conventions and Legal Pitfalls

Baksheesh or Bribe: Cultural Conventions and Legal Pitfalls is about bribery, international business, and cross-cultural business practices. Specifically, this book examines one major anti-corruption law - the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), which makes the payment of bribes to foreign government officials a legal wrong. This book seeks to raise awareness of the FCPA in the international business community and to demonstrate that the FCPA is a general and vaguely written law, as well as a statute without the benefit of precise judicial interpretation or regulatory guidance. Moreover, the FCPA is a law with very serious legal consequences; and also is one that now is being very aggressively enforced by the U. S. Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Accordingly, this book: ? Examines Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, focusing on its anti-bribery provisions and their legal implications for global executives, managers, entrepreneurs, and their companies. ? Seeks to differentiate legal payments to foreign government officials from illegal bribes. ? Provides strategies and tactics for the international business person to avoid legal liability under the FCPA. ? Discusses bribery in a variety of cultural contexts and from different ethical perspectives. ? Presents a case study based on a noteworthy actual bribery prosecution by the Department of Justice along with discussion questions. ? Provides a series of short case problems of typical bribery scenarios which can be used for legal analysis, discussion, and training purposes. The book is intended for use as a resource for international business executives, managers, and entrepreneurs, expatriates, and attorneys, as well as an academic text for usage in international management, business law, ethics, and government regulation of business courses.