Salt Lake Olympic Bribery Scandal Essays

Words: 8631
Pages: 35

I. INTRODUCTION
The Olympic Games took place in the United States at Salt Lake City, Utah. The tournament opened on February 8, 2002 and closed on February 24, 2002. There were 77 NOCs, 2,399 athletes, 78 events, 22,000 volunteers and 8,730 of the media. “The Games saw the expansion of the Olympic program to 78 events, including the return of skeleton and the introduction of women’s bobsleighs. Athletes from a record 18 National Olympic Committees earned gold medals, including first-ever gold for China and Australia” (Olympic.org).
The Olympic International Committee is the supreme authority of the entire Olympic Games, responsible for organizing and maintaining a successful event. “Acting as a catalyst for collaboration between all
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Many of the businesses argued that this was a necessary business expense and that without bribes American businesses would suffer in their ability to do business in a climate that would give foreign businesses an unfair advantage. Research, however proved that despite the fact that the payments which this bill would prohibit are made to foreign officials, in many cases the resulting adverse competitive affects are entirely domestic. Former Secretary of Commerce, Richardson, pointed out that in a number of instances, "payments have been made not to "outcompete" foreign competitors, but rather to gain an edge over other U.S. manufacturers.” (House of Rep.) So the excuse that this Act would in someway put American businesses at a competitive disadvantage with their foreign counterparts was bogus. Just the opposite was true. In fact, this type of illegal activity ensured in most situations that a substandard product received a premium price with domestic companies and their mostly American stockholders, instead of foreign concerns, paying the price for the prostituting of the markets.
C. APPLICATION OF LAW TO TOPIC AND LEGAL ANALYSIS
After analyzing the case we can see that the SLOC clearly violated the Anti-Bribery and Anti-Corruption law under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act law due to their illegal bribery acts. If a company or a committee promises or pays a foreign official in favor of advantages for their own business, it is considered illegal and