Matt Levine’s Money Stuff: Bribery Won’t Make You a Hero

Programming note: Money Stuff will be off tomorrow and Monday, back on Tuesday.

Bribes

If you work in sales in an out-of-the-way geography in a large multinational public corporation, two things that you will be told a lot are:

1. Win lots of business!

• 2. Don’t pay bribes!

In general, your company really means both of these things. Winning business is obviously very good; it is how your company makes money. Not paying bribes is also quite important; if you pay bribes your company might get in lots of trouble and have to pay much more in fines than you ever ...