Reading check exercises

1. Consult a dictionary and practice the pronunciation of the following words. Pay attention to the stress.

To condemn, bribery, to proliferate, to succeed, to curb, consequences, widespread, to undermine, to amass, spectacular, embezzlement, selfishness, discretion, to weed out , transparency, to disclose, incentive, threatens, routine, turn a blind eye, to justify, greedier, accountability, over-politicized, bureaucratic, syndicated.

2. Answer the following questions.

1. What are reasons of corruption ?

2. What are roots of Corruption ?

3. What forms of corruption do you know ?

4. Is corruption a voluntary or forced process?

5. What way can people reduce bribery and corruption ?

6. Have you ever given bribes? Explain reasons.

3. Explain what is meant by:

the Law of Moses, to undermine the very fabric of society, the routine cases, to turn a blind eye to the suffering, oversight bodies, to benefit oneself, without sufficient checks and balances, to identify and weed out smth., little transparency in the process, to have immunity from prosecution, personal loyalties, “commissions”.

4. Retell the text.

Vocabulary and grammar work

1. Match the words on the left to the definitions on the right:

1. gift a. friendly and generous treatment and entertainment of guests;

2. reward b. a benefit received as part of the arrangements with your employer;

3. tip c. something given willingly without payment;

4. bribe d. a helpful act;

5. perk e. the ability to obtain favorable treatment from someone;

6.hospitality f. something given or received for doing something good;

7. favor g. a small sum of money given to someone for their services;

8. influence h. something given or offered in return for some, often dishonest, help.

Now work in pairs. Match the 8 words above to one of the following situations. If you think more than one answer is possible, discuss the differences.

1. Your boss is retiring. The employees give her some beautiful gold earrings at her leaving party.

2. You visit| a foreign company to discuss a new contract. They pay for a 5-star hotel and your expenses.

3. You want to build an extension to your house, but you need permission from the local council. You give money to one of the local councilors to make sure you get permission.

4. Your sales manager increases your business by 200% in a year. You give him a new BMW.

5. After paying the salon, you give a little extra money to the hairdresser who cut your hair.

6. You get a free lunch in the staff canteen every day.

7. You use your friendship with a member of the government to make sure that you get a particular government contract.

8. You won't be home in time to pick up your suit from the dry cleaner's. You ask a friend to get it.

2. Read, translate and analyze the following materials:

A. Wrongdoings in economic sphere:

* 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 compete 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 counterfeited millions of banknotes in a safe. e.g. The official export credit agency of France paid around $2 billion in bribes to foreign purchasers of “defense equipment”. 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 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 watch was also a problem, but we're working hard to close workshops where fakes are made.

There have been bad cases of fraud where someone offers to lend money, but demands that the borrower pays a "fee" before they get the loan. People can be stupid’.

And there's embezzlement, a type of fraud where someone illegally gets money from their employer. One accountant sent false invoices to the company he worked for, and paid money into bank accounts of false companies he had "created". He embezzled $2 million - quite a scam.

There used to be a lot of racketeers demanding "protection money" from businesses. If they didn't pay, their businesses were burnt down.

Money laundering, hiding the illegal origin of money, is common - gangsters buy property with money from drugs. When they sell the property, the money becomes legal". But banks now help by telling us when someone makes a large cash deposit.

3. Answer the questions using expressions from A and B tasks.

• 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?

• 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?

• A rich businessman lends $ 1 million to a politician so that he can buy a house. The politician pays no interest on the loan and does not mention it when asked to give a complete account of his finances. Which word, used especially about politicians, do people use to talk about this?

• Specialists in one department of a financial institution are advising Company X on a merger with another company. In another department of the financial institution, traders hear about this and buy large numbers of Company X’s shares. What are they guilty of? (2 expressions ) What should the financial institution do to prevent this?

• A company selling weapons to a foreign government makes secret payments to politicians who make decisions on which companies to buy arms from. What could these payments be called? ( 4 expressions ) What is the company and the government guilty of? ( 2 expressions )