Bribery In Criminal Law

Bribery in criminal law refers to the improper acceptance by a public official, juror, or someone bound by a duty to act impartially, of any gain or advantage to the beneficiary, including anygain or advantage to a third person by the desire or consent of the beneficiary. A gain or advantage may be a pecuniary benefit in the form of money, property, commercial interests or anything else the primary significance of which is economic gain.”“Every person who shall voluntarily offer or receive any benefit as consideration to influence anofficial act to be done or not done, shall be guilty of bribery, and upon conviction thereof shall beimprisoned for a period of not more than three years, and fined three times the value of the9

benefit offered

Given the way thatSection 502 is worded, as long as any person who receives a “benefit as consideration” is in a position “to influence an official act to be done or not done,” then the voluntary offer of such a“benefit” to that person for the purpose of getting that person to influence an official actconstitutes a bribe under Section 502. An enterprising lawyer can argue that ETG’s promise of a payout to non-government-official Yapese citizens is intended to get those Yapese citizens toinfluence the Yap State Government to, among other things, repeal Yap’s anti-gambling lawsand allow for ETG to carry out casino operations in Yap. In that scenario, then, ETG’s promiseof a payout arguably constitutes a bribe under Section 502.The second issue is whether ETG’s promise of an “annual gaming tax” to the Yap StateGovernment constitutes a bribe under Section 502 of the Yap State Code. Of course, if a licensefee or tax is legitimate and provided-for under relevant state/national laws and regulations, thenthe payment (or the promised payment) of such a fee/tax

(For one thing, a grossrevenue tax is broader than a limited “gaming tax.” For another, tax codes are notoriously verykeen on specificity in language, and if a tax code has no specific mention of a special provisionfor a “gaming tax,” then the common practice in tax law is to not recognize such a provision.)Even if the FSM Tax Code contains a provision for a “gaming tax,” that still should not matter, because ETG’s brochure proposes that a “gaming tax” shall be paid to the Yap StateGovernment, not the FSM National Government.In light of the foregoing discussion, it is my opinion that ETG’s promise of an “annualgaming tax” to the Yap State Government is, in essence, a “voluntar[y] offer” according toSection 502 of the Yap State Code. If we are to assume that ETG makes such an offer “asconsideration to influence an official act to be done,” e.g., to get the Yap State Government tolegally support ETG’s proposed Project in Yap, then that may constitute bribery under