Bribery may be defined as something of value given with the intent of influencing the judgment or conduct of a person in a position of trust. Bribery is one of the few crimes mentioned explicitly in almost all engineering Codes of Ethics or Standards of Conduct, perhaps because so many engineers are involved in the awarding of construction contracts—a widespread activity that by its nature is especially susceptible to covert influence arrangements.

The purpose of this course is to broaden the professional engineer’s understanding of engineering ethics by examining seven case studies of bribery. The studies are actual cases that have been successfully prosecuted by agencies of the federal government.

The ethical aspects of the bribery cases are developed by identifying the particular Standards of Conduct for engineers that were violated by the actions of the convicted engineers.