What is a bribe?
The word “bribe” has certain connotations, suggesting corrupt motive in order to influence the agent being bribed, causing loss to the principal. However, the civil courts do not require proof of corrupt motive, influence and loss: “the safety of mankind requires that no agent shall be able to put his principal to the danger of such an enquiry as that”: Parker v McKenna (1874) LR 10 Ch. App 96. The essential vice inherent in bribery is that it deprives the principal, without his knowledge or informed consent, of the disinterested advice which he is entitled to expect from his agent, free from the potentially corrupting influence of an interest of his own. The civil courts therefore look to whether a payment was secret and has put the agent in a position of conflict in order to determine whether such payment was a bribe. There is no need to show some sort of dishonesty normally associated with the word “bribe”. • The case of Panama and South Pacific Telegraph Company v India Co., (1875)
