Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Royce must be Rolling in his grave

Unfortunately it still goes on despite someone being arrested at least once a month.

Yesterday I heard, on the radio, a magistrate who was involved in the huge anti-corruption "Mani pulite" campaign in the '90s. He said that our very nice politicians have changed the laws to make the work of the magistrates more difficult and today it is worse than ever. A very pessimistic point of view.

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.

I must admit that back in 1996 I was appalled, whilst trying to buy a bankrupt restaurant in Paris from a Mandataire Liquidateur (Liquidator), it was made clear to me that although my offer was the highest and one of the most credible, unless she got FF 50000 in cash (£5000 at the time) in a brown envelope, then I would not get the attribution.

The Mandataire Liquidateur is a court appointed official. I couldn't believe my ears.

I was successful in buying the place, and I personally never paid her the baksheesh.

She did get her cash though. Ahem.