Welcome to our first global GCN survey. The topic of our first survey* which covered 74 is commercial bribery. With our international GCN network, we set out to find answers to the following six questions:
- Is commercial bribery a criminal offense in your country?
- If commercial bribery is a criminal offense, may the bribe giver and the recipient be punished?
- Does the prohibition apply to (i) individuals, (ii) companies or (iii) both?
- If commercial bribery is not a criminal offense in your country, is it prohibited by any other laws (e.g. unfair competition etc.)?
- How active are your local law enforcement agencies to enforce commercial bribery in your jurisdiction?
- To the best of your knowledge, how many commercial bribery proceedings took place in your jurisdiction over the past three years?
Here are our exiting results:
Is commercial bribery a criminal offense in your country?
54 out of 74 countries replied that there is a specific provision which makes commercial bribery a criminal offense. In 5 countries, commercial bribery is only a criminal offense if special circumstances apply, e.g. if there is some nexus to a public body. Merely 15 countries replied that commercial bribery is not covered by a specific criminal provision. 
The map below shows which countries specifically prohibit commercial and which do not:
[show-map id=’45’]
- Yes
- No
- Under special circumstances
If commercial bribery is not a criminal offense in your country, is it prohibited by any other laws (e.g. unfair competition etc.)?
There were 15 countries where commercial bribery was not a criminal offense. 8 of these 15 countries do not prohibit commercial bribery by any other laws. In the other 7 countries, commercial bribery is covered e.g. as fraud or unfair competition.
[show-map id=’48’]
- Yes
- No
If commercial bribery is a criminal offense, may the bribe giver and the recipient be punished?
Out of the 59 countries where commercial bribery is a criminal offense, there are two countries (Qatar and the UAE) where the bribe giver is not punishable.
May only the individuals or also companies be held criminally liable?
In the majority of countries (45), individuals and companies can be held criminally liable. In 14 countries only individuals are directly covered by the criminal prohibition.
[show-map id=’47’]
- Both
- Only individuals
How active are your local law enforcement agencies to enforce commercial bribery in your jurisdiction?
The participants of our study reported that in most of the countries where commercial bribery is a criminal offense the authorities are either moderately active (21) or very active (15).
[show-map id=’49’]
- Very active
- Moderately active
- Not active
To the best of your knowledge, how many commercial bribery proceedings took place in your jurisdiction over the past three years?
Since in most countries, there are no public records, the participants of our survey estimated the number of commercial bribery proceedings during the past year.
[show-map id=’50’]
- More than 25
- 10 – 25
- Less than 10
* Currency of the information: end of 2016
