Trouble on the River

The manager for overseas operations was facing a real problem. Her company’s drilling team in the Amazon basin has just radioed a message asking for immediate help. The exploration team is in a remote area accessible only by helicopter. Their pump and water treatment equipment have quit operating and new machinery must be flown in immediately or twenty people will have no fresh water. The necessary equipment is available in a neighboring country but not in the host country. If the equipment could be flown in the problem will be solved but the host country requires a variety of import documents to be prepared and a number of government approvals to be obtained before it will allow importing of the equipment to take place. Several days may be needed to get official government clearances and then a day or two more to arrange for the airlift. Past experiences with the host country’s government tells the overseas manager that some “palms will have to be greased in order to get the approvals from various government officials.”

The overseas operations manager has a company code of ethics that specifically forbids any payments of any kind to foreign officials when such payments represent bribes. The host country has laws on its books forbidding such payments as well. U.S. law is somewhat vague on the matter because it does not involve the purchase or sale of goods.

When the overseas operations manager took the problem to her boss, a corporate vice president in charge of Latin American operations, he told her to get the needed equipment to the jungle crews as quickly as possible. He also reminded her that company policy is clear. His specific instructions to her were as follows: “Get the equipment to those people as fast as you can. I don’t want you to break any laws but you have got to move quickly. The health and sanitation needs of those people must come first. I know you can do it, that’s why we pay you so well. Don’t give me the details. Just get me the results.”

QUESTIONS

1. What are the ethical issues in this case?

2. If you were the president of this company and discovered that the crisis was handled by paying host-country officials to get speedy approval for importing the equipment, what would be your reaction?