Ivan had been in the toy business for many years. Some years ago he became a shareholder of a Shanghai-Hong Kong joint venture. Because of Ivan's substantial experience in the toy trade, he took charge of the production line, and divided much of his time between Hong Kong and Shanghai.

Ivan often made all the procurement and purchasing decisions, and was often offered with entertainment and gifts by many suppliers. One of these suppliers even went so far to offer Ivan a commission of five per cent of the value of each contract, as a reward for Ivan’s placing orders for industrial chemicals with their company.  Ivan had received a total of HK$250,000 illegal rebates or commissions over an eight-month period. 

The case was brought to the attention of the ICAC, who found that some of the shareholders were not aware of Ivan's acceptance of advantages from this supplier, and that the company did not have in place a clear policy on this issue. Some shareholders claimed they had given Ivan permission to accept commissions to subsidise his social expenses in Shanghai and Hong Kong, but they were not able to state when the permission was granted, let alone the approved amount or the circumstances under which the acceptance was permitted.

A project engineer is employed by a chemical product manufacturer to supervise the engineering works performed by its contractors.   Due to his job nature, he develops a close companionship with a contractor who has recently undertaken a gas tank repair project of the company.

Learning that the project engineer suffers from substantial loss in a recent stock investment, the contractor immediately offers to lend the project engineer $200,000 to help him overcome the financial difficulty.

When time comes for an inspection to be conducted for the gas tank repairing works, the contractor requests the project engineer to turn a blind eye to certain defects found in the finished works, saying that the defects can have little chance to pose a safety hazard.   He also reminds the project engineer of his generosity to him in the past.   The project engineer finds it difficult to require the contractor to rectify all the defects found in the works.

An assistant service manager of a company accepted several pieces of computer equipment from a sales manager of a computer hardware supplier, including a scanner, a printer, a projector and a CD writer valued a total of HK$110,000, as a reward for placing purchase orders with the supplier. The company did have procurement guidelines that stipulated the minimum number of quotations required for every purchase. However, the assistant service manager colluded with the supplier to produce false quotations to deceive his employer. The assistant service manager also falsified some documents to get his employer to pay for a hard disk, a monitor and a central processing unit, all of which he took home for his own personal use.

When receiving his company's instruction to design a computer software for a digital answering machine, a company's software engineer claimed that he was too busy to take up the job and recommended it to be contracted out to an outside software house which was owned solely by his former colleague.

The software house owner at first had no intention to undertake the job.  But the software engineer persuaded him to secure the job first and then sub-contract it back to the software engineer.  Using the software house as a disguise to deceive his own company, the software engineer could pocket $95,000 being 90% of the project fee while the rest would go to the owner.

An international company intended to set up its South East Asian headquarters in Hong Kong.  A committee was appointed, chaired by the company's vice president, Susanna, to select the supplier of IT equipment and computer software for the new office.

One of Susanna's old school friends, who worked for a computer supplier, learnt of the possible contract and approached Susanna.  In an attempt to influence Susanna's decision over the contract for the IT equipment and software, he gave her an expensive watch as a gift. Though fully aware of her classmate's intention  and  clearly  knowing  that  she  did  not  have  the  power  to  affect  the decision  of  the  committee,  Susanna  still  succumbed  to  the  temptation  and accepted the gift. In a further attempt to influence her decision, her school friend paid Susanna a visit at home and deliberately left behind a new notebook computer, saying it was for her trial use during overseas business trips.

After prudent consideration, the committee finally decided to award the equipment and software contract to another company.  Susanna's old school friend was upset at the outcome but could do nothing about it. Later, some of Susanna's colleagues learnt of the watch and notebook computer, which gave rise to much gossip in her company. The incident eventually drew the attention of senior management and was reported to the ICAC for investigation.

Jonathan was a very task-oriented young computer programmer employed by the Galaxy Electronics Ltd for two years.

One day, his supervisor asked him to design a programme for a digital answering machine.   Jonathan turned it down and explained that he was extremely busy at that time.  The job was then contracted out to an outside software house named Leo Systems Company.

It so happened that Leo, the proprietor of Leo Systems, was an old friend of Jonathan.  He rang Jonathan and told him of the job offer.  Actually, Leo and his staff had their hands full at that time but would not like to turn down Galaxy when they made the offer.  What Leo wanted was to maintain a good relationship with Galaxy all through so that in future when their jobs again had to be contracted out, they would come to Leo Systems again.

Leo asked if Jonathan would consider lending a hand in designing the programme in his own spare time.  The contract money could be split, with Jonathan taking a share for the part that he did and Leo taking the share his men worked on.

Jonathan thought hard.  He could certainly sacrifice a few nights' sleep to get a part of the programme written up.  He knew what the requirements were.

Should he say ‘yes’ to Leo?  He would be earning extra money at the expenses of his boss.  Would this weigh heavily on his conscience? Or was it a stone that could be lifted easily?

Man, an IT manager, was responsible for sourcing a LAN system to be set up in his large engineering company.  He started to contact various contractors and one of them was a medium sized computer firm called ABC whose technical sales manager Gordon was a personable young man.

Gordon tried to persuade Man to use his suggested LAN system by quoting a price at $500,000 and claiming it the best bargain in the market.  Indeed, Gordon had his eyes set on the cost of after-sales service and maintenance which was actually quite profitable.  Man hesitated and said that he needed to seek his supervisor’s approval first as well as to seek a few more other quotations for comparison.  In order to secure the deal, Gordon made a suggestion that he would offer Man a set of free computer equipment of the latest model for his personal use if Man assisted Gordon in getting the contract. 

What should Man do? Should Man accept Gordon’s attractive offer?  Would he commit any offence by doing so?

Edmond introduced his friend Anthony to work under his wing in a small I.T. company.  Felix, the company boss, had complained to Edmond for several months about Anthony’s work performance.  Anthony’s procrastination and being unnecessarily thorough was well-known in the company.  Felix just managed to tolerate the situation because he did not want to upset Edmond who brought large profits to the company.  Felix also told Edmond in confidence that Anthony was not the person whom the company needed and could be replaced by someone who was more efficient and yet cheaper.

As a friend, Edmond wondered if he should personally warn Anthony in advance so that Anthony could get prepared.  If Felix was right, terminating Anthony might be for the best interest of the company as well as for Edmond to maintain a good relationship with Felix.  On the other hand, leaking out the news in advance might also damage Felix’s trust and affect staff morale.

To tell Anthony or not to tell Anthony? That was the question worrying Edmond!

Tony was a Customer Services Officer of a telephone company.  He tried his best in whatever he was assigned to do.  Very soon, he made a name for himself as a hardworking and responsible young officer.  Soon he got to know a lot of people working in his section.  One of them was Curtis.

Curtis was a part-time phone salesman working with Tony in the same team.  He had contacts everywhere and could gain entry to many exclusive clubs.  He treated Tony to dinners in the evenings, and sometimes even golf trips across the border on Sundays.

Tony picked up golf eagerly. He loved the greens and enjoyed the leisurely pace of the sport.  What was more was the pride of being among the well-to-dos in town.  He wished he had his own golf-membership but he knew it was almost impossible, given his present income and connections.

Curtis could guess what was on Tony's mind and told him, “If you release the personal information of your clients to me, I can fix a membership for you.  You have easy access to the computer records and this should not be a problem.”

Tony knew very well that Curtis would misuse these clients’ personal information for illegal gains.  He did not wish to be part of any scam.  But he could not resist the temptation of the golf membership. It would be decades before he could secure one on his own merits and earnings.  Perhaps it would not be difficult to find another colleague who also had access to the data to be the scapegoat.  Dinner and entertainment by Curtis also flashed across his mind.  Tony began to waver.  Should he say ‘yes’ to Curtis?

Tom and Jerry were mechanical engineers of the Clark Gable Company Ltd (CG Co).  The two were the same batch and had been with the company for only a short time.  Recently, due to the re-organisation of the firm, some people would be laid off.   Mechanical engineering work would then be vested with a larger company, the Rock Hudson  Ltd.  The first ones to go would be those who came last and thus Tom and Jerry's jobs would be in jeopardy.

Tom tried to find a way out for the two of them.   They persuaded two friends, Sam and Tim who had similar training and background, to set up an engineering company called the Catch All Engineering Ltd (CAE).  This would serve as a fallback in case they were really sacked.

Shortly after CAE was set up, the bad news released.   Tom and Jerry were given notice to leave CG Co but, to their great surprise, Rock Hudson Ltd., which had taken over CG Co, offered to employ them to undertake their old duties.

Both of them were overjoyed.  But then they had another problem.  The two would have no more time to take care of matters related to CAE.

So one evening Tom and Jerry treated Sam and Tim to a sumptuous meal and told them that they could no longer share the business with them. Sam and Tim were outraged.  They reprimanded Tom and Jerry for making use of them in the first place and then leaving them in the lurch.  Trying to find a way out, Tim then made a proposal to Tom and Jerry.

Rock Hudson, as a major company, could provide many work opportunities.  The only thing that had to be done was to get CAE on their approved list of contractors.  Tom and Jerry could try to arrange that in whatever way possible.  After all, CAE provided quality service and it had to survive.

Tom and Jerry were in a quandary. They counted themselves most fortunate to be still in employment and with an even larger company. And they wished they could help their friends out.  Should they agree to add CAE to the approved list no matter what and no matter how?  It would do Rock Hudson no harm anyway.

What would happen if they refused?  Would they be indebted to Sam and Tim for the rest of their lives?  How should they handle that?