Bribery

Bribery is an illegal practice involving the offer of a gift, favour or other pecuniary advantage in exchange for actions or favours. For example, it may involve cash or valuable gifts given in exchange for special treatment. Often bribery occurs in situations where the person giving a favour gains an advantage that they would not have gained without this. Usually, bribery involves an offer towards people in power or authority, for example the police, politicians or other officials. But bribery can occur at many levels, in the public sector as well as in the private sector, and can come in many forms. A distinction must be made for example between active bribery, which entails that one is offering a bribe and passive bribery, which means that one receives or demands a bribe. A person can be punished for bribery as soon as he or she has made an offer. It is therefore irrelevant whether this offer is accepted or not. Examples of bribery could be giving money to a public official to get permission to supply goods to the public authority in which the bribe recipient sits or giving a ring to an employee of a leasing company to get a lease you otherwise would not have got.