As far as I am concerned, bribing government officials is indeed an act of violating the federal laws; yet still being practiced by many profiteers. The money is mainly used to win the tender contracts through secret operations that are completed by a specific officer who is in charge of the bidding. In the article from Bloomberg news, Alcoa (alumina company) and one of its business man, Victor Dahdaleh, were charged of guilt due to long term foreign bribery. The company admitted its false actions and agreed to pay a penalty of 384,000,000 US Dollar. It may appear to many that this case is almost irrelevant to our daily affairs. However, violating the basic commercial morality does bring out numerous unnecessary drawbacks. First of all, business bribery sabotages the essential cycle of the global market. It not only devalues the importance of fair competition in commerce, but also expropriate the tender/bidding rights of the other competing companies. In addition, this misbehavior impedes the normal operation of market mechanism. Because the scarce resources are not fully allocated, the quality of the service and goods are being degraded at the same time. Thus providing growing space for counterfeit articles. Therefore, more strict laws and rules should be established and enforced in order to combat with commercial briberies.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-14/billionaire-found-in-middle-of-bribery-case-avoids-u-s-probe.html