Bribery and Corruption

Definition of Bribery
Bribery is a crime that occurs when a person offers, gives, receives, or accepts
something of value in exchange for influence over, or alteration of, another
person’s behavior. The bribe itself is the gift of money or other assets, given on
the basis that the recipient will act in a certain way that is contrary to what he
would do in ordinary circumstances. To explore this concept, consider the
following bribery definition.

Bribery and Corruption

Bribery and corruption are commonly though of in relation to politics and
governmental corruption. The truth is, bribery and corruption raise their ugly
heads in a broad range of circumstances, from governmental contracts, to
obtaining privileges, services and favors. Sports is another arena in which
bribery and corruption commonly occur. Because the very nature of bribery and
corruption is secretive, the general public learns only of those few schemes in
which the parties have been caught.

For example:
In May 2014, 14 high-ranking officials of the Fédération Internationale de
Football Association (“FIFA”) were arrested and charged with 47 counts of
crimes including racketeering, money laundering, and wire fraud conspiracies,
among other similar crimes. Enforcement officials claim that the group of
defendants engaged in a 24-year scheme of enriching themselves through
bribery, kickbacks, tax evasion, and other corruption in international soccer.
The defendants, who hail from the U.S. and South America, committed these
illegal acts to obtain lucrative marketing and media rights to international soccer
tournaments all over the world.
As in the above example, bribery and corruption often occur simultaneously,
and have the potential to create a major imbalance in trade industries and
emerging markets. Due to the prevalence of bribery and corruption, countries
around the world have enacted laws with the goal of reducing the incidence of
bribery and corruption.
The U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which is enforced by the
U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the U.S. Department of Justice,
makes it illegal for a person to make payments to foreign officials in exchange
for their business. The Act also requires U.S. companies to employ certain
accounting methods and reporting that meet specific anti-bribery provisions.
 Pivarcy and Theft

In order to determine what are examples of piracy, you need to understand what is
piracy and what is not piracy. Piracy is the unauthorized file sharing of copyrighted
materials. To put simply, piracy is the distribution of copyrighted material that you did
not create or don’t have a license for. Note: Works that are under copyleft or public
domain licenses are excluded from this definition because simply distributing these
works don’t violate the licenses.

Now, let’s talk about what is not piracy. Downloading, listening or viewing copyrighted
material is not piracy. However, the ethics of whether downloading, listening or viewing
copyrighted material is morally right or wrong is debatable. Writing a book with same
characters and settings as another copyrighted book is not piracy, that is plagiarism.
Furthermore plagiarism is not piracy and piracy is not plagiarism. Singing a cover of
copyrighted song is not piracy, that’s just copyright infringement. Remember, not all
copyright infringement is piracy.

Now that we understand what is piracy, let’s list example of piracy.

1. Uploading a video of unauthorized copyrighted material such as a song, TV

show, or movie onto YouTube (or other video sharing sites like Vimeo or
Dailymotion) is piracy.
2. Uploading copyrighted files to cloud storage websites such as MediaFire and
4shard is piracy.
3. Making a video streaming service such as KissAnime, Gogoanime,
Cartooncrazy, and KimCartoon that hosts unauthorized TV shows through
various servers is piracy.
4. Making a torrent and then distributing it to sites such as thepiratebay is piracy.
5. Recording a song from the radio, then transferring it to a tape, vinyl or CD and
then distributing to a few people/friends is physical piracy
6. Recording a video of a movie that you watched at the theatre or at home and
then distributing it to a few people/friends is physical piracy.
7. Photocopying a book, then converting it into a document, PDF, or an eBook
and then sharing it to a website is piracy.
8. Making a website that has unauthorized music such as Russian music sharing
sites.
 THEFT
Employee theft can take many forms, including embezzling money, directly taking
products and stealing information. Understanding the different types of employee
theftis important because there are many important distinctions, both when it comes
to the impact it has on the business and criminal charges.

Here is a list of the most common things employees steal.

1. Physical cash

Employees often have access to company cash. An employee might take money from
cash registers, petty cash drawers or open safes. Additionally, employees might make a
customer pay more for an item and keep the difference paid. 

2. Company supplies or equipment

Sometimes an employee might take small items from an office or stockroom, including
pens, scissors or stapes. This might happen over the course of employment or on the day
the employee quits. In other cases, a worker could take more expensive objects, such as
furniture or computers. 

3. Merchandise

When employees are in warehouses or on sales floors, they might steal physical products.
For example, workers might hide items in their apron pockets or behind other merchandise
on shelves to steal later. In a stockroom, an employee could take products before they are
scanned into the store inventory software. 

4. Information

According to Inc.com, an increasingly common form of employee theft is an attack on

company computer systems. Employees might steal information from their employers, such
as office memoranda, customer lists or proprietary data. This theft can take place via
printing, emailing or carrying out a physical object. Employees could also steal customer
information such as credit cards and other personal data.

5. Payroll

Employees can perform actions or falsify records to get paid for work they did not
complete. For example, they might request travel reimbursement for a trip unrelated to
employment or submit time sheets with shifts they did not work. On a smaller scale,
employees could take a lot of breaks and fail to deduct the time from their hours.

 
 Coercion
Definition of Coercion
Every day, Thomas brings five dollars to school for lunch. Two kids in his class know
that he has the money on him. Every day they team up and threaten to beat Thomas unless he
hands over the money. They also tell him that if he fails to bring his lunch money the next day,
the torment will get worse. By the simplest definition, Thomas is a victim of coercion, being
forced to bring and hand over his lunch money.
In the legal sense, coercion is more complex. Coercion means forcing a person to do something
that they would not normally do by making threats against their safety or well-being, or that of
their relatives or property. The person making the threats is attempting to gain compliance from a
victim through intimidation. The threats can be physical in nature, meaning that pain or injury has
been implied or has actually taken place.
Example,
Pointing a gun at someone's head or holding a knife to someone's throat is an actual
physical threat. Telling someone that their sister will be robbed if they do not comply is an implied
physical threat distress. Creating feelings of obligation, rejecting someone from a group, or
threatening to disclose a secret are all forms of psychological intimidation. For example, telling a
person that intimate private photos of them will be emailed to their company unless they agree to
sign a contract would be a form of coercion..
Unfair discrimination
It is important to understand that it is not seen as discrimination in the workplace if
an employer discriminates for affirmative action reasons. Employers who have 50 or
more employees or who have annual income exceeding the amount stipulated by the
Employment Equity Act, organs of state, employers who voluntarily comply with the
affirmative action requirements, employers who have been ordered to comply by a
bargaining council, and municipalities are required to follow affirmative action
regulations. Discrimination in the workplace is also not unfair if it prefers specific
people because of job requirements or excludes certain people because they do not
meet the job requirements. Discrimination based on productivity is allowed as well
as discrimination by law.
Discrimination in the workplace for any other reason is not allowed according
Section 6 of the Employment Equity Act. Discrimination is unfair if it is for reasons
such as race, sex, gender, age, sexual orientation, family responsibility, pregnancy,
marital status, HIV status, disability, religion, ethnicity, conscience, social origin,
culture, belief, political opinion, birth, or language. Disputes about unfair
discrimination in the workplace must be referred to the CCMA for resolution within
180 days or six months from date of incident. Though you cannot have legal
representation at the conciliation hearing, it is allowed and recommended for the
arbitration hearing, if the dispute cannot be resolved at the conciliation hearing, or if
it must be referred to the Labour Court for a decision.
Examples of unfair discrimination in the workplace include:

 Discriminating when retrenching employees based on race.

 Discriminating in pay for equally qualified employees who perform the same
duties in the same position.
 Not giving benefits or compensation for employees while others at the same
company receive them.
  Refusing usage of public restrooms for certain employees based on their
colour.
 Discriminating against an employee by refusing promotion based on the fact
that she is pregnant.
 Drug testing only selected employees based on profiling.
 Paying female employees less because of their gender.

Two types of discrimination in the workplace exist: Direct discrimination and indirect
discrimination. An example of direct discrimination is where the employer allows
certain employees to use the restrooms in the facility based on their race, or pays
men more than women for the same work. An indirect form of discrimination, which
is often more difficult to prove, is when the employer allows, and turns a blind eye,
to sexual harassment of female employees by male employees. The impact of the
employer’s actions or failure thereof must be considered. It is essential to gather as
much evidence as possible regarding discrimination, including witness statements
and video footage. Because it is often difficult to prove, we recommend that you
make use of experienced labour law attorneys to help take the necessary steps
against the employer by first submitting the complaint to the CCMA or the relevant
bargaining council.
An employer can, for instance, not enforce drug testing if it has not been stipulated
as part of the employment contract. They can also not choose to only test a selected
group, such as front-of-house staff in the restaurant who is of one race group, while
not also drug testing the other front-of-house employees because they are from a
certain race group. Note that it is important to follow correct procedures in bringing
the matter to the CCMA for dispute resolution and here also the expertise of labour
law attorneys will be helpful in first determining whether the employer has
discriminated, the nature of the discrimination, and the merits of your case.