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The Week In Review

Friday's coming just in time. We've used up more than our alloted pixels this week, but it wasn't our fault. There was Jack Grynberg's riveting tell-all complaint against his former big-oil partners, fresh allegations of cover-up or neglect or both in Seimens' internal investigation, and rising outrage at the impotence of the law, courtesy of BAE, Prince Bandar, Mr. Blair and the Serious Fraud Office. Added to all that was the appearance of the Buy-Now button to the right, which garnered a million clicks (if we round up to the nearest seven-digit number).

So let's take a breather with . . . a few anecdotes. These, readers will understand, are never intended to trivialize corruption, but to expose it. Nor to belittle or embarrass anyone who has to make a living in a corrupt society.

-- A fellow from Azerbaijan said the public there complained about the "bribe cost" of drivers' licenses being too high. So the government sent its official anti-corruption team to hang out in the motor vehicle bureau. Result? Now you have to pay bribes to both the motor vehicle people and the anti-corruption squad...

-- The Saudi customs clerk showed the man his goods inside the fenced holding area. Instead of unlocking the gate, the customs clerk rubbed his thumb and finger tips together in the universal demand for baksheesh. The man emptied his pockets on the table in front of the clerk. When the clerk saw that all the money the man carried amounted to just $36, he yelled, "What are you, English?"

-- Back in Azerbaijan, it's common knowledge that people buy juicy government posts, and that the top customs spot at the airport is purportedly worth $200,000. Job seekers do their market research to determine what the rate of return on their investment will be, given normal corruption levels during their tenure.

That's it for this busy week. But if you've got a first-hand story or a second-hand anecdote, send it along by email here (anonymity guaranteed) or as a no-name comment to this post here. We won't publish the emails or comments now, but we'll share them (without attribution) from time to time.

Full post as published by The FCPA Blog on April 17, 2008 (boomark / email).