Bribery is the simplest and most blatant form of corruption. Bribe-paying happens all around the world, at levels that vary from petty bribes to very large sums. Yet it is illegal throughout the world, meriting two Articles (numbers 15 and 16) in the United Nations Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC), and a treaty of its own in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (usually known as the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention). Figure 2.1 illustrates the relationship between bribery and other forms of corruption and economic crime.

UNCAC and the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention have provisions on the bribery of public officials, although more recent anti-bribery legislation such as the UK Bribery Act (2010) and France's Loi Sapin II (2017) move the focus away from solely public officials. These laws acknowledge that bribery also takes place in other contexts, such as within the private sector. Indeed, there has been a spate of new and updated anti-bribery laws in the past two decades, as countries aim to comply with international conventions or react to national scandals. The grandparent of these laws is the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977, and its use of extra-territoriality – that bribes paid overseas can be prosecuted in other jurisdictions where the company has operations – has been adopted by the UK and France, among others.

Article 1 of the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention provides the key concepts that underpin recent legislation:

Legislation typically frames bribery as an inducement offered to (or solicited by) someone in a position of power in order to persuade them to use their role improperly. Section 1 of the UK Bribery Act describes this as “improper performance of [a relevant] function or activity”.