WRONGDOING AND CORRUPTION BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE

 

BUSINESS VOCABULARY IN USE 40. WRONGDOING AND CORRUPTION

 

A Wrongdoing PARADISO FINANCIAL SERVICES REGULATORY AUTHORITY We regulate financial services; our job is to prevent financial wrongdoing and punish the wrongdoers. • Insider dealing or insider trading: someone buys or sells securities using information that is not publicly available. Chinese walls are measures that you can take to stop knowledge in one department of your company being illegally used by another department, to buy or sell shares for example. • Price fixing: a group of companies in the same market secretly agree to fix prices at a certain level, so they do not have to complete with each other. • Market rigging: a group of investors work together to stop a financial market functioning as it should, to gain an advantage for themselves. B Bribery and corruption An illegal payment to persuade someone to do something is a bribe, or informally a backhander (BrE only), kickback or sweetener. To bribe someone is bribery. Someone who receives bribes is corrupt and involved in corruption. This is informally known as sleaze, especially in politics. C Fraud and embezzlement ‘I’m Sam Woo. I’ve been a fraud squad detective for 20 years and I’ve seen a lot! Once, a gang counterfeited millions of banknotes in a garage. We found US$10 million in counterfeit notes. They were very good quality. Counterfeiting or forgery of banknotes was a problem, but now all the forgers are in jail. Faking luxury goods like Rolex watches was a problem, but we’re working hard to close workshops where fakes are made. EXERCISES 40.1 Answer the questions using expressions from A and B opposite. 1. Two ferry companies with ferries on the same route secretly meet in order to decide the prices they will charge next summer. What are they guilty of? 2. A company that wants to keep its share price high makes secret payments to investors who buy its shares. What are the company and the investors guilty of? 40.2 Complete this table, using information from C opposite. The first row has been done for you. You may wish to refer to a dictionary.

ANSWER KEY