Example:

The role of the project owner’s site supervisor is to monitor the contractor’s work day to day on site, and to approve, for the purposes of monthly payments, the contractor’s work quality and quantities, and the amount of their equipment and labour on site.  The contract length is six months.  The contractor’s project manager informs the site supervisor that the contractor’s project staff were planning to go every weekend together to major club football matches, and then go for dinner afterwards.  This was in order to keep site morale high, and to facilitate good working relations on site between the contractor’s personnel.  The contractor proposed that the supervisor should join them at these weekly gatherings, as it would help the working relationship between the contractor’s and project owner’s personnel.  The contractor said that the contractor would pay for all the tickets and meals of the supervisor.

Explanation:

Paying for entertainment in business circumstances is not necessarily corrupt.  However, it can amount to a bribe if the purpose of the entertainment is to influence someone to perform a function improperly. 

The contractor offering to pay the site supervisor’s tickets and meals every weekend for six months is a very significant and frequent expenditure, and is highly likely to influence the supervisor’s decision making over the contractor on site.  It is difficult to act impartially in situations where you may have to reject the contractor’s work and timesheets when you are being entertained by the contractor every week, and where you increasingly regard the contractor’s personnel as friends rather than business colleagues. 

Even if the offer and acceptance of this entertainment is not actually intended to be corrupt, it is highly likely that a third party (e.g. a member of the public, a newspaper, or a judge) would regard it is a corrupt.

The supervisor should in the above circumstances therefore refuse the contractor’s offer.  The amount and frequency of the above offer makes it highly likely that it would be regarded as corrupt.

The offer by the contractor of entertainment of the supervisor at only one match, which was not repeated, would be far less likely to be regarded as corrupt, provided that the match ticket and meal were of reasonable cost, and would be unlikely to influence the supervisor.  However, as the supervisor has such a critical role over the contractor day to day, it would be far safer and wiser for the supervisor to refuse any entertainment whatsover from the  contractor.  

If the supervisor receives any such offer from the contractor, he should disclose this as soon a possible to his manager.