Which country takes the most-likely-to-bribe award?

Posted By Rebecca Frankel Wednesday, December 10, 2008 - 5:10 PM Share

If you were thinking the place Vladimir Putin calls home, you chose wisely, tovarisch. Russia topped the list of countries whose companies are most likely to pay bribes when doing business abroad. China and Mexico took the silver and bronze. India, dropping from first in the 2006 survey, took fourth followed by Brazil and Italy.

Transparency International, a worldwide coalition dedicated to fighting global corruption, based its 2008 Bribe Payers Index (BPI) on interviews with 2,742 senior business executives from companies "selected on the size of their imports and inflows of foreign direct investment."

Among those on the up and up, Belgium ranked the least likely to engage in bribery, followed by Canada, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The United States managed to squeak in with the top ten "good guys," ranking ninth.

Photo: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

EXPLORE:BUSINESS, CORRUPTION, RUSSIA

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