Bribes vs. gifts

This paper closely examines the concept of bribery in dealings between business managers and public officials, the networks of bribery that operate and the different forms that bribery can take including situations where a bribe can be given under the name and cloak of a gift. However, there is a fine line that divides a gift from a bribe in the context of business interactions and not all gift-giving is bribery. The paper enhances our understanding of the difference between a gift and a bribe in the context of dealings between a business manager and a public official and proposes ‘test of disclosure’ as a means to establish whether a gift is indeed a gift or not, regardless of the cultural situation involved.