Knowing when a gift becomes a bribe is crucial for companies doing business internationally.
Determining the difference is one of the services an Annapolis nonprofit provides such corporate giants as Exxon Mobil, General Electric, FedEx and Northrop Grumman.
Trace International, which was founded in 2001 by Alexandra Wrage, has more than 100-member companies that pay $15,000 a year in order to keep their executives up to speed on navigating ever-changing international anti-bribery laws.
“There are some tricky areas,” said Wrage, who previously worked as legal counsel for Northrop Grumman.
While it is legal to offer token gifts at conferences and exhibitions in the country of Kuwait, it is forbidden to offer alcoholic beverages because they are illegal in the Muslim state.
Kuwaiti law also prohibits a company representative from taking a government official to an inexpensive lunch or dinner, according to Trace?s legal guidance.
Trace offers an array of online services and live seminars to educate executives about anti-bribery compliance.
With the number of anti-bribery laws increasing, the pace of prosecutions picking up and fines for companies reaching a new high of $28.5 million last year, Wrage said the company has expanded to three local employees and a hub of nine managers serving companies worldwide.
“One of the most important services we provide to companies is due diligence reports on sales representatives,” Wrage said.
Though companies are using such preventive measures, bribery and corruption remain rampant in 70 countries, according to an Oct. 18 Corruption Perceptions Index complied by Transparency International, a Berlin-based coalition against corruption.
More than two-thirds of the 159 nations surveyed for the index got less than 5 out of a clean score of 10, according to the index.
