how to win friends and influence people

[ravi <gadfly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

with apologies if this is old news:


Russia tops business bribes survey

PARIS, France --Russian companies are the most likely to offer or pay
bribes for contracts in emerging market countries, according to a survey.

German-based corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI)
revealed on Tuesday the results of an investigation carried out in the
15 emerging market countries that trade most with multinational
corporations.

Heading its Bribe Payers Index 2002 survey was Russia, followed by South
Korea, Italy, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Japan, and the United States.

Australia was the country least likely to offer or pay bribes, followed
by Sweden, Switzerland, Austria and Canada.

TI chairman Peter Eigen was due to present the findings at a news
conference in Paris on Tuesday.

He said in a statement: "Politicians and public officials from the
world's leading industrial countries are ignoring the rot in their own
backyards and the criminal bribe-paying activities of multinational
firms headquartered in their countries, while increasingly focusing on
the high level of corruption in developing countries.

"The governments of the richest nations continue to fail to recognise
the rampant undermining of fair global trade by bribe-paying
multinational enterprises."

Eigen said many of the countries named in the index have laws making
corrupt payments to foreign officials a crime.

He said: "The laws are not being properly enforced. Our new survey
leaves no doubt that large numbers of multinational corporations from
the richest nations are pursuing a criminal course to win contracts in
the leading emerging market economies of the world."

He said the forthcoming meeting of the Organisation for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) and then the G8 Summit provided "the
leaders of the industrial world with an opportunity to confront this
critical situation."

European countries mostly occupied the middle ground in the 26-state
survey, which TI conducted between last December and March by polling
leading businessmen, bankers, companies, auditors and chambers of commerce.

Russia was not in TI's first Bribe Payers Index in 1999, which found
Chinese firms the most corrupt, followed by South Korean and Taiwanese
companies.

This year's country with the cleanest companies, Australia, was second
in 1999 to Sweden, this year's runner up.

The 2002 BPI was conducted in 15 emerging market countries: Argentina,
Brazil, Colombia, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria,
the Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Africa, South Korea and Thailand.

Find this article at:
http://europe.cnn.com/2002/BUSINESS/05/14/survey.bribes/index.htm