贿赂
Graft work
移花接木
A new study lights up the shadows
无处遁形
GONE are the days when multinationals could bookbribes paid in far-flung countries as a tax-deductibleexpense. These days would-be palm-greasers have to contend with ever-tougher enforcementof old laws, such as America's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977, and a raft of new ones incountries from Britain to Brazil.
有种日子一去不复返了，想当年，跨国公司可以先行贿，然后在远远找个国家支付以抵扣公司税。 如今，想要伸手的人必须面对依然严峻的原有法令，例如1977年的美国反海外贿赂法，以及从英国到巴西等国家的一大堆新颁法令。
As policing is stepped up, however, much about the practice of bribery remains murky. TheOECD's first report on the subject, published on December 2nd, sheds some light by analysingmore than 400 international bribery cases that have been brought since the anti-briberyconvention of this group of mostly rich countries came into force in 1999.
虽然加强了监管，但是，许多贿赂行为仍然在暗处作祟。国际经合组织首次就此问题撰写的首次报告在12月2日发表，通过分析从1999年主要是由发达国家组成的该组织颁布的反贿赂公约生效以来的超过400起跨国贿赂案例，而发人深省。
Some findings confirm what was known or suspected. The most bribe riddled sectors are oil,gas, mining, construction and transport. At the other end of the spectrum, financial servicesand retailing are fairly clean. Most bribes go to managers of state-owned companies, followed bycustoms officials. And America leads the enforcement pack, with 128 cases that resulted insanctions (see chart).
一些调查结果证实了那些所知到的和所怀疑的东西。贿赂最泛滥的领域是石油、天然气、采矿、建筑和运输业。而在该序列的另一端，金融服务和零售业则相当清白。大多数贿赂聚焦在国有企业的管理人员，其次是海关官员。美国查处力度最大，处置了128起案件。
But the report also undermines some common beliefs. Bribery is not a sin of rogue employeesor poor countries. In 53% of cases payments were made or authorised by corporate managers(and in 12% of them by the chief executive). More than 40% of the time, the bribe-takingofficial was in a developed country (though this figure is probably inflated by rich countries'greater willingness to criminalise bribery and co-operate with cross-border investigations).Authorities are often alerted by firms themselves: those that co-operate quickly are oftentreated leniently.
但报告也对一些常识造成了冲击。贿赂不是居心不良的员工和贫穷国家才有的罪恶。在53%的案件中由公司管理者亲自或授权支付贿款，其中12%由总裁进行。超过40%的案件中，受贿的公务人员来自发达国家(虽然这个数据可能被发达国家的惩治贿赂以及进行跨国协作调查的强烈意愿夸大了)。当局常常收到公司自己的报案：毕竟坦白从宽嘛。
Nevertheless, the cleanest countries tend to be rich, and the dirtiest poor. Four of the fivebest-performing countries in Transparency International's latest corruption-perceptions index,also published this week, were Nordic. The worst were North Korea and Somalia. (Interestingly,China's score slipped despite a recent high-profile campaign against corrupt officials.)
尽管如此，最清廉的国家仍然是那些富国，而最糟糕的还是穷国。五个在“透明国际”组织最新的清廉指数中(也是本周刚刚发布)表现得最好的国家是北欧。最差的是朝鲜和索马里。(有意思的是，尽管近期有高调的反腐运动，中国的评分仍然下降了)
The cost of bribery varies by industry. Builders pay a modest average of 4% of a transaction'svalue; extractive companies a hefty 21%. Add to that the rising costs of paying penalties andconducting internal probes—these cost Siemens, for example, $2.4 billion when it was mired ina graft scandal a few years ago—and bribery starts to look bad not just for reputations, butalso for bottom lines.
行贿的成本因行业而异。建筑商平均支付成交价的4%，较为适中;而采掘业企业则高达21%。加上那些日益上升的罚款和进行内部调查的支出(以西门子为例，当数年前深陷贪污门之时，这些费用高达24亿美元)，于是，如今行贿可不仅仅是名誉上看起来不妙，更关乎盈亏生死。
Even for firms that are not caught, the business case for bribery is far from clear. A 2013 studyby Harvard Business School and America's National Bureau of Economic Research found thatwhat bribe-paying companies gain in higher sales in corrupt countries, they lose in lower profitmargins. According to the OECD, the average bribe costs 11% of the transaction's value and35% of associated profits.
