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At my job, we are told to immediately report potential corruption/bribery to our line manager/a specific person depending on the scenario.
If you get ahead of this and own up to it with your boss, the contractor cannot use it to blackmail you at a later point, which may incur more serious consequences.
You may be able to keep the trees, you may have to ...
58
Send a request to the contractor for a bill, then pay it. Be sure to check that it is a fair market price, and not a discount, or that could still be construed as influence peddling/bribary.
No freebie = no bribery.
Then, mention this to your employer, mention that there has been a misunderstanding, and that you have already taken steps to correct it. ...
54
Can the trees be considered as a bribe and what would I do to secure my job?
Yes, they can be considered as a bribe. Why take chances?
The best course of action here, is to play safe. Return those trees to the sender, send them an email thanking them for the trees, and mentioning you never intended to ask them to provide you with the trees. This will be ...
22
"Can the trees be considered as a bribe.."
Two things to consider: First, as @JoeStrazzere already mentioned you should check your company policies regarding 'gifts'. What is considered a gift and in which context did you receive such.
Second, check your local laws in terms of value-limitation. In my country gifts above the value of € 70 could be ...
13
One member of my family was in a line of business where the public facing people received plenty of large and small gifts from business partners (import/export with regions where expensive gifts are a part of the business culture). The company policy was to accept these gifts with gratitude and bring them to the company where they were stored until the next ...
9
he wants to be e-mailed first everytime before I can talk to him because he has a busy schedule.
It looks like a practise that he follows to keep his day organized, so an e-mail asking for some time should be enough here (as a direct report you don't have to be 100% precise).
What would I need to put in the Subject line and how should the body of the ...
8
Tell your manager or compliance department in writing and fast. If you tell them casually, they might "forget" this and you could be in trouble.
Find out what the cost of these bonsai should be. There is usually a value limit on acceptable gifts from commercial partners. 100 USD comes to mind here, but there should be a number provided by the legal ...
3
First off, you should never tell your boss you are resigning (or may resign) in an email unless you have no other option. If at all possible this should be done in person, or over the phone if that's not feasible.
Since you don't have regular one-on-one meetings with him and he requires an email to set up any other meetings, you'll have to say something. In ...
2
What can i do to secure my job?
Mention it to your direct manager casually.
While you didn't intend to push around your contractor, you have a situation that might be interpreted as some form of illicit payment.
A minor slip-up will not hurt you, but covering it up definitely will.
2
I found three trees in the garden. In my mailbox, there is a short thank you letter signed by the contractor.
Yes, it looks like bribery for two reasons:
1. You received something which you asked for
2. The giver left you a note to make sure your gratitude is returned.
Mention it to your employer immediately.
If there isn't a specific person, tell your ...
2
The approach suggested by many other answers here (insist on returning or paying for the trees, and internally notify your boss or HR) has a couple of possible downsides:
Most importantly, the contractor may be upset about their gift being ungraciously rejected.
Less importantly, you end up either out of pocket and/or without any trees. (This is not the ...
1
I would talk to my boss immediately and tell him what happened. If you tell him and ask what you should do, then he'll know that you were not soliciting a bribe. What would be the point of soliciting a bribe and then promptly turning yourself in? If you don't tell the boss and he finds out, then it can look like you were hiding something.
If the boss says "...
1
In this situation, I would send an e-mail to the contractor with this kind of content:
Hi [...],
I have received the trees you sent me. I'd like to thank you for the gift, but unfortunately I have to send them back as this could be considered as bribery by our strict company's policy. I'm sure you weren't think of anything wrong (and I was pleased by ...
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