ABSTRACT
The Financial Times report about the fall of President Suharto in Indonesia captures the paradoxes inherent in most major companies' approach to country risk in developing countries. Holders of artificial market power face attack from all sides. Economies are liberalising under pressure from consumers, donors, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The consortia that companies are beginning to use to combat corruption play a similar co-ordinating role that the mafia does for prisoners. In America and Western Europe, the authors proclaim high standards when it comes to things such as paying bribes, but they don't always practice what they preach. Ethical decisions can be cumbersome and unprofitable in the near term, but after the authors' refusal to pay 'fees' in Thailand became known, they never had a problem over bribes again in that part of the world.
