Bribery

As the U.S. Senate was passing a bill to gut the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, (see accompanying story), the Justice Department was handing over to the House new - and revealing- data on overseas bribery by U.S. corporations.

The report contains information on 54 ongoing investigations of "alleged bribery" by U.S. corporations abroad, which occurred after the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act was passed on December 19, 1977.

The Justice Department assessed the competition that existed for contracts on which the alleged bribes were made. Here the facts are telling.

Of the 35 bribery cases for which it could ascertain levels of competition, the Justice Department found that 14 - or a full 40076 - of the alleged bribes went for contracts for which there was only U.S. competition. In only three instances did U.S. companies allegedly make bribes for contracts where the only competition was foreign.

Justice's bribery typology also shows that questionable payments by U.S. corporations to secure other contracts went to officials at the highest levels of foreign governments. Five of the 54 alleged bribes went to a president or prime minister and five to a vice president, deputy prime minister, an aide to a president or prime minister, or a member of a royal family. The bulk of the questionable payments went to cabinet ministers and agency directors or to their deputies (see chart).

The sizes of the alleged bribes range "from a low of $5,000 to a high of approximately $2.0 million per payment (some allegations in particular cases range in payments aggregating approximately $35 million) and also range from a low of 2% to a high of 10% of a contract or transaction," the report said.

Who gets bribed Allegations were made of payments to the following levels of foreign government official; in some cases it was alleged that more than one official was involved: 5    President or prime minister 1    Vice president or deputy prime minister 2    Aide to president or prime minister 2    Member of royal family 22    Agency chairman, director, or cabinet minister 23    Agency sub-director or deputy cabinet minister 3    Political party 6    Military officers 10    Lower level employees The relationship between bribery by U.S. companies and foreign competition: 1    No competition 13    Only U.S. competition 3    Only foreign competition 18    Both U.S. and foreign competition 19    Unclear or unknown Source: U.S. Department of Justice, submission to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, October 29, 1981.