I can only assume that either you never did business in the middle east or were not close enough to know what was going on.
Only in UAE, KSA and Oman - but always through intermediaries. We had our own people in KSA and UAE who worked as sales support and specification sales people. The transactions were always through a local firm. That way we were not implicated in any brown envelopes.
The interesting place was China. A Mr Wang was responsible for authorising the fire safety systems in every major building in Beijing (a busy man in the 90's when I went there). When he visited us in Leicester, we could take him to a restaurant. In Beijing, we could not entertain him in any way. We were therefore treated to a meal in a government restaurant. The surrounding streets were filled with black Audis. We were shown into a private dining room where the food served was the best we had in China.
