Given the reluctance of governments to investigate bribes paid to foreign governments, I want to suggest some simple tests for those who want to know if a particular company pays bribes.

Has the company won any government contracts in countries that score lower than 3.1 in Transparency International’s corruption perception’s index (CPI)? If so the company has almost certainly paid bribes.

Does the company regularly win contracts in countries in the red regions of the CPI map? If so, again, the company has almost certainly paid bribes.

What makes me so confident have lived in, and worked as a an analyst in, a country that ranks 84 in the 2006 CPI. I (and everyone else who knows the place) know that no government contract is won without someone getting a bribe.

The British government’s halting of the investigation of BAE is comparatively minor given the vast scale of this type of corruption, and is no more than a sign of determination to avoid implementing the OECD treaty.

Try looking at some listed (because the information is available) British companies. A considerable chunk of the FTSE350 alone “pass” my tests above, and there must be far more smaller and private companies that also do. Given this, the fact that there have been no prosecutions and only 14 current investigations, someone payng such as bribe can still count on being safe from prosecution, let alone conviction.