You are the Executive VP for International Sales of ABC Company in Chicago. You have just arrived in XXXXX, the capital of country YYYYY, to sign the agreement for your company to sell $400 Million in heavy equipment to their Ministry of Infrastructure. It has taken your company 4 years to reach this point, having competed successfully against strong French, German, Japanese and Chinese competition. At the "celebration" dinner the night before the contract signing, the Vice Minister pulls you aside and suggests that, "in order to facilitate the smooth signing of this contract" it will be necessary to deposit $10 million in a certain Swiss bank account.
What do you do?
ABC must have an unreasonable policy like all responsible and ethical firms, banning the payment of bribery or the provision of payments to win deals. As International Sales VP, I will stick to ethical policy and postpone the decision diplomatically for now. I'll contact my supervisor then and report on the company's progress information and document the report in writing, and send it to the Top Management, if needed by company policy. Since the volume of the charge facility is fairly high and not an ethical payment, I will not undertake the move to approve the offer even at the risk of the agreement not being signed properly.
I will also try and persuade the Vice-Minister to stop claiming
such payments in respect of ABC corporations ' ethical standards
for such bribery. If needed in the Infrastructure Ministry I will
contact some other media to explain the company's policy on no
bribery. In order to help close the deal without being bribed, and
to be able to give a clear instruction to abandon the contract, I
am going to keep my superiory management updated about these
developments and also provide some encouragement from their
end.
You are the Executive VP for International Sales of ABC Company in Chicago. You have just...