Anti-Bribery for Sales · Module 2 of 2

Tender

A $2.8M bid. Five days from submission, your bid manager wants to send Super Bowl tickets to the prospect's procurement lead.

Portrait of Mike Reilly, Senior Account Director at Meridian Industrial
Your Role

Mike Reilly

Senior Account Director, Meridian Industrial

Module 1 was Holbrook. You were on the receiving end. Now you're running point on a new bid. $2.8M of pressure-testing equipment for Veridia Solutions' Gulf of Mexico program. Submission Friday next week. You have not won this account before. Today, your own bid team wants to send hospitality the other way.

The bid. Three suppliers shortlisted by Veridia: Meridian, Granite Industrial Holdings, and Nordic Precision Inc. Submission deadline next Friday. Award decision the Monday after.

Meridian's giving-side rule. Any hospitality offered to a prospect during a live tender must be pre-cleared by Karen. The threshold is the same $250 you saw in Module 1, applied in the giving direction.

The cast. Vince Maloney runs your bid. Karen Mendoza is still compliance. Erin Davies is still CFO. Pam Quintana is Procurement Director at Veridia and the person scoring your bid. Tyler Banks is the BD analyst Vince assigned to the bid, eight months in, attended your onboarding.

Before You Start

How This Works

A branching scenario. The choices you make shape whether the bid lands cleanly, whether it lands at all, and where you sit on the right side of the Travel Act.

+3 The move that protects the bid AND keeps Meridian off the regulator's file.
+1 Defensible but partial. You'll see what got missed.
−2 Looks like sales hustle. Reads as inducement to a prosecutor.

Tip: Highlighted text like Travel Act is clickable. Tap to read the underlying law in full.

Portrait of Vince Maloney, Bid Manager
Monday, 5:55 PM · bid room, Meridian HQ
Narrator

Bid wash-up. Pricing locked. Vince at the whiteboard.

Vince Maloney

Mike, one thought. Pam Quintana at Veridia. Never won her, never lost her. Only thing she\'s ever said is "I look forward to the proposal."

Vince Maloney

Granite Industrial took her to the Super Bowl in February. Two seats, corporate suite. I've got two for the NFL playoffs next Saturday. Divisional round. Sitting in my drawer.

Mike Reilly

Submission is Friday week. Award the Monday after.

Vince Maloney

Which is why I want them out now. Get our face in front of her before the proposal lands. Granite will do it again. If we don't match, our paper has to do all the lifting.

Two tickets, NFL playoffs divisional round, corporate suite~$480
Hospitality (food, drinks)~$140
Estimated total per recipient$620
Vince Maloney

I'll log it the moment we send. Let me get this moving tonight.

Portrait of Mike Reilly
⚖ Decision Point 1 of 3

Vince is twenty-two years in and has won deals you haven\'t. Tickets are $620 a head, submission ten days away. Whatever goes out goes out under your name too. Vince hasn\'t asked Karen.

What do you say back to Vince?

Your choice

Stop the tickets. Propose a working lunch instead, through Karen.

Tickets don\'t go. $620 a head, ten days from submission, to the buyer scoring the bid hits both Travel Act indicators. Counter-propose a sub-$100 working lunch, agenda shared, pre-cleared by Karen. Face-time happens, inducement reading doesn't.

Your choice

Tell Vince to hold. Take it to Karen first thing tomorrow.

Don't say no, don't say yes. Walk into Karen's office Tuesday morning and ask her to pre-clear or refuse. Defensible. But it leaves Vince with the expectation it's still on, and you've punted the call.

Your choice

Send the tickets tonight. Log them in the register after the bid lands.

Vince knows the market. Granite will send tickets. Law doesn't prohibit reasonable hospitality. Out the door tonight, log it after the proposal lands, brief Karen after the award. Only question is whether you match.

Portrait of Vince Maloney
Monday, 6:08 PM · bid room +3
Mike Reilly

Vince, the tickets don't go. $620 a head into Pam's calendar ten days from submission is the textbook Travel Act problem. The answer is no.

Vince Maloney

Granite Industrial will. We lose this on whose face she remembers.

Mike Reilly

Then we get face-time differently. Working lunch, sub-$100 a head, agenda shared, three engineers walking her through the test rig. Karen clears it by tomorrow lunchtime.

Mike Reilly

Pam's a procurement director on a $2.8M decision. She wants the technical case. Granite's tickets aren't a strategy. They're a habit.

Narrator

Vince doesn't agree. But he doesn't push. The tickets stay in the drawer. Karen's pre-clear lands at 11:02 the next morning.

Why This Held Up

The FCPA and DOJ hospitality guidance name value and timing as the two flags. Stopping the tickets before they leave the office removes the offer entirely. Counter-proposing a sub-$100 working lunch with an agenda shared in advance reframes the activity as legitimate technical engagement. DOJ ECCP risk-based design is satisfied: the response is proportionate to the $2.8M bid and the ten-day window. The pre-clear lands in writing before the spend.

Portrait of Karen Mendoza
Tuesday, 8:35 AM · Karen's office +1
Mike Reilly

Vince wants to send these to Pam Quintana. $620 a head. Submission Friday week. I told him to hold.

Karen Mendoza

Refused. Twice the threshold, into the buyer's calendar, ten days from a $2.8M award. No version pre-clears.

Karen Mendoza

But Mike, you knew the answer last night. Vince has spent fifteen hours assuming it might still go.

The Gap That Cost You The Top Mark

Tickets didn't go, pre-clear is on the file. Defensible. But under Training and communications, the salesperson closest to the deal is meant to recognize the Travel Act indicators on the spot. Punting to Karen signaled to Vince that the call was procedural rather than an obvious no, which makes the next ask harder to refuse. DOJ hospitality guidance reads value plus timing as inducement risk regardless of intent.

Portrait of Vince Maloney
Monday, 7:42 PM −2
Mike Reilly

Send them. Courier, gift card, "looking forward to the proposal." Log it tomorrow, brief Karen after the bid lands.

Narrator

Tickets go out Tuesday morning. The card mentions the proposal twice. Pam's assistant opens the package at 11:08, photographs the gift card, and forwards it to her boss: "Submission Friday week. Tickets received today. Logging on buyer-side register and flagging to internal audit. Recommend declining."

The "Everyone Does It" Trap, Mirrored

The Travel Act and state commercial bribery laws make it an offense to give a benefit intending to induce improper performance. The advantage doesn't need to be cash, the intent doesn't need to be stated. DOJ hospitality guidance names value and timing as the two strongest indicators, and $620 ten days before a $2.8M award hits both. Logging after the fact documents the offense rather than preventing it. Meridian's DOJ ECCP posture is now harder to defend.

Wednesday, 2:18 PM · bid room
Narrator

Tyler Banks catches you by the bid-room coffee machine. Eight months at Meridian. He sat through the same anti-bribery onboarding you sat through twelve years ago.

Tyler Banks

Mike, can I check something. Vince asked me yesterday to quietly find out Pam Quintana's home address. He didn't say why. I haven't done it. I'm assuming the playoff thing is still alive in his head, even after Monday.

Tyler Banks

Also. I asked Karen for a quick read on what we can and can't do, and she said the only person on this bid who's pre-cleared anything is you. Vince hasn't filed a single hospitality entry in eighteen months. I don't know if that's normal.

Narrator

It's not normal. It means whatever Vince sent on previous bids, he sent without ledger trail. Before you take that anywhere, you owe yourself one careful look at this bid file.

Wednesday, 2:40 PM · your laptop

The Veridia bid file, on one page.

Bid tracker and hospitality register, side by side.

DetailValue
ProspectVeridia Solutions · US industrial water and energy
Bid value$2.8M · pressure-testing equipment, Gulf of Mexico
Buyer scoring the bidPam Quintana, Procurement Director, Veridia
Submission deadlineFriday next week · 10 calendar days
Award decisionMonday after submission
Hospitality offered to date (this bid)None recorded
Vince's giving register, last 18 monthsZero entries
Vince's proposed offer (Monday)2 tickets · ~$620 to Pam
Today's request to TylerPam's home address, no stated reason
Pre-clear threshold (live tender)$250

Either Vince genuinely caught the playoff idea first time. Or the eighteen-month gap is a pattern, and the home-address request changes what kind.

Karen emails: "Mike, free at 4? Tyler flagged something. Want to walk through Vince's giving history."

Activity · Score Vince's Gift Against The Indicators

Three DOJ-style indicators sit across the top. Five facts about Vince's offer sit down the side. Click the indicator column under which the offer fails most clearly. One column is the load-bearing one a prosecutor would lead with.

Fact about the offer Timing & proximity to decision Value Recipient role
10 calendar days from submission High — —
Award decision the Monday after High — —
~$620 per recipient (2.5x policy threshold) — Mid —
Recipient is the buyer scoring the bid — — High
No prior relationship between Vince and Pam Mid — Mid
Portrait of Erin Davies, CFO
⚖ Decision Point 2 of 3

Erin walks into the bid room before the 4pm slot with Karen. "Mike, Vince said you killed the playoff thing. Veridia is $2.8M we don\'t currently win. You\'ve ruled out the move our competitor will make. I\'m asking what we do instead, and whether \'a working lunch with engineers\' closes a procurement director who\'s never met us."

How do you respond?

Your choice

Hold the line on hospitality. Compete on the bid.

Lunch is the bridge. Proposal closes. Tighter technical narrative plus a half-day test-rig visit the week after submission, on the books. If Granite wins on tickets, that tells us about Pam\'s procurement. Karen files: idea raised, refused.

Your choice

Restage as a sponsored industry roundtable.

Sponsor a Gulf pressure-testing roundtable. Ten attendees across shortlisted clients, agenda set with an industry body. Pam gets a seat, so do peers. Pre-clear, sub-$200, no individual gift. Defensible. The line between "industry event" and "hospitality aimed at the buyer" thins fast.

Your choice

Find a smaller gesture that stays under the threshold.

Erin has a point. Drop the playoff seats. Send Pam a $200 ticket to a technical conference, an industry book, a note from Vince. Under $250. Log on the way out. Reads to Pam exactly the way the $620 ticket reads, just smaller.

Portrait of Erin Davies, CFO
Wednesday, 4:05 PM · Erin's office +3
Mike Reilly

No tickets, no roundtable, no gift card. Proposal closes the bid. Tighter technical narrative plus a half-day site visit at the test rig the week after submission, on the books. Karen files the note: playoff idea raised, considered, refused.

Erin Davies

If we lose and Granite took her to the playoffs, you know what I'll hear in the post-mortem.

Mike Reilly

If Pam scored a corporate suite higher than a $2.8M technical case, that's a procurement we never held. Cost of finding out is ten days. Cost of not finding out sits on a register a federal prosecutor can subpoena.

Erin Davies

Karen, file the note. Mike, draft tonight.

Why This Held Up

Holding the line under commercial pressure is the load-bearing test of Training: staff believe procedures are real only when senior people apply them in front of senior money. Karen's file note creates the documented decision DOJ ECCP rewards. The site visit is the on-the-books engagement DOJ hospitality guidance contemplates.

Portrait of Karen Mendoza
Thursday, 10:15 AM · Karen's office +1
Mike Reilly

Sponsored Gulf pressure-testing roundtable, four weeks out. Ten attendees across shortlisted suppliers' clients, agenda set with the AWWA. Sub-$200 a head. No individual gift.

Karen Mendoza

I can pre-clear. Two conditions. Agenda technical and visible to all three bidders before the bid closes. Invite list not tilted toward Veridia.

Karen Mendoza

One more thing. If DOJ sees the invite went out the week before submission, they'll ask if the event existed before the bid did. AWWA's emails must predate the bid window.

Where The Compromise Holds, And Where It Doesn't

DOJ ECCP requires controls proportionate to risk. A genuine event with an external body, agenda visible to all bidders, no asymmetric advantage, sits inside the lane DOJ hospitality guidance contemplates. But timing matters. An event invented inside the bid window reads as marketing dressed as networking.

Wednesday, 4:30 PM −1
Mike Reilly

Drop the playoff seats. Single $200 conference ticket, industry book, hand-written note from Vince. Under the threshold. Log it on the way out.

Erin Davies

Sensible. Proportionate.

Narrator

The package goes out Thursday. Pam's assistant logs the conference ticket and the book in Veridia's incoming-hospitality register the same morning. Pam doesn't decline, doesn't accept, doesn't acknowledge. The bid lands the following Friday. Whoever scores it has now seen Meridian's name on the buyer-side register the week before they read the proposal.

Below The Threshold Is Not Below The Test

Pre-approval thresholds are a procedural backstop, not the legal test. The Travel Act test asks whether the advantage was given intending to induce improper performance, and the DOJ hospitality guidance reads value alongside timing and recipient role. A $200 conference ticket aimed personally at the buyer, sent by the bidder during the bid window, hits the timing axis whether or not it clears the $250 hurdle. Risk-based program design expects judgment, not threshold-shopping.

Friday, 9:55 AM · bid room, two days before submission
Narrator

Tyler knocks before stepping in. He has a single sheet of paper with him.

Tyler Banks

Mike, before the bid goes Friday. I went back through Vince's expense reports for the Veridia pre-bid period. Two dinners with Pam's procurement analyst at restaurants Vince didn't pre-clear. Both under $250. Both inside the bid window. Neither on the giving-side register.

Tyler Banks

I'm not raising this to get Vince in trouble. I'm raising it because the proposal goes out Friday and I'm putting my name on the cover page as the BD lead under your sign-off. I want to know we're not going to have a problem the day after the award.

Narrator

Tyler is doing the M1 Wayne-Kovacs move on you, the right way round. The bid is two days from going out. The procedural question is what happens before submission so the bid stands up to retrospective review.

Activity · Pre-submission ethics checklist

Six statements about the Veridia bid as it stands today. Check the ones you believe are true or defensible. Leave the rest blank. Wrong checks and wrong blanks both lose points.

Checked = you think the statement is true / defensible. Unchecked = you think it's false / overreach.

Portrait of Karen Mendoza, Compliance Manager
⚖ Decision Point 3 of 3

Bid goes out Friday. Veridia near-miss on the file. Vince's eighteen-month register gap is the separate question Erin wants on her desk Monday, as a joint BD/Compliance paper on giving-side hospitality.

What do you put in place?

Your choice

BD-side pre-clear flow, retrospective audit of Vince's prior bids, and quarterly board reporting.

Mirror the receiving-side rules: 90-second pre-clear above $250 to a customer, 24-hour Karen SLA, automatic block during live tenders. Quiet retrospective audit of Vince's last 24 months for DOJ ECCP exposure. Quarterly aggregate reporting. Joint BD/Compliance training annually.

Your choice

Drop the threshold during tenders, send a company-wide reminder.

Lower the giving-side pre-approval threshold from $250 to $100 during active tenders, reminder to all BD staff, raise it at the next sales kick-off. Proportionate. No new system. No audit. Rules clearer for the next bid.

Your choice

File the incident note. The policy already covers it.

Procedure exists. Karen has the file note. Tickets never went. Bid went out clean. An incident note for next year's audit is enough. Anything more risks turning a clean win into a witch hunt of a senior bid manager.

Portrait of Erin Davies, CFO
Following Monday, 9:00 AM · Erin's office +3
Erin Davies

Walk me through it.

Mike Reilly

Three pieces. BD-side pre-clear: 90-second form, anything over $250 to a prospect, 24-hour SLA, automatic block during live tenders. Retrospective audit on Vince's last 24 months, scoped to contracts closed without register entries. Quarterly board reporting.

Erin Davies

The audit is the fight. If it finds something, every bid manager will think they're next.

Mike Reilly

If it finds something, DOJ finds it twice as fast at twice the cost. DOJ ECCP doesn't ask whether we knew. It asks whether the program was well-designed and applied in practice.

The Three Pillars On The Giving Side

DOJ ECCP: 90-second form sized to BD's workflow, hard blocks during tender windows. Third-party due diligence: retrospective audit applies due diligence to the salesforce, not just suppliers. Monitoring: quarterly board reporting makes the system self-correcting and visible to independent directors, which is what DOJ expects.

Friday, 2:00 PM +1
Mike Reilly

Giving-side threshold drops to $100 during active tenders. Reminder out Monday. Karen and I cover it at the next sales kick-off.

Erin Davies

Sensible. Not heavy-handed.

Narrator

The email goes out Monday. Open rate is 68%. By Friday it's been forgotten. Six months later a different bid lead at Meridian sends two $90 dinners to the same procurement analyst on a different account. Each event is below threshold. The pattern is the one Tyler flagged about Vince, with a different name on the file.

Communication Is Not A System

Training and communications separates communication (telling people the policy exists) from training and procedural enforcement (making sure they apply it under pressure). An email and a kick-off slide are the first. A pre-clear form with hard blocks and a retrospective audit are the second. Without the audit, prior bids stay in the file unexamined, and the DOJ ECCP posture on those contracts depends on procedures the company has now noticed weren't being followed.

Eighteen months later −2
Mike Reilly

I've drafted the file note. Procedure is there, Karen has the audit trail. We don't need to make it heavier than the situation needed.

Erin Davies

Fair. These things happen.

Narrator

The note goes on the file. Vince's eighteen-month register gap is never audited. Meridian wins Veridia. Two years later, Granite Industrial loses a different competitive bid in the same sector and asks its lawyers to look at how Meridian wins what Meridian wins. The lawyers find five contracts where the BD lead was Vince and the giving-side register has no entries from the bid window. They take it to the DOJ. The DOJ's first request to Meridian is for the giving-side hospitality register covering the relevant tender periods.

Individual Note Versus Systemic Fix

The DOJ ECCP evaluates the company's program, not one individual's actions. The question is whether Meridian's controls were well-designed and applied across every bid the company ran. A single file note on a near-miss does no monitoring, no training, and no procedural improvement. Monitoring and continuous improvement requires the company to review and update procedures in light of experience. Meridian had the experience. Nothing was reviewed.

Six months on

Where the Veridia bid sits

The bid went out without playoff tickets. Whether Meridian won or lost the account matters less than what now sits on the file about how Meridian sells. What happens between Mike, Vince and the next prospect depends on what Mike put in place.

Module complete. Take the check when ready. Take the Module Quiz →
Your Result
/ 17

Your Decisions

Take into the next bid

1. A line for the bid room. "$620 a head, ten days from submission, hits both Travel Act indicators. We bridge through a working lunch on the books, agenda Karen signed."
2. Below the threshold is not below the test. Travel Act is intent and proximity, not a number. Pre-clear value plus timing plus recipient role together.
3. Eighteen months without a giving-side entry on a senior bid manager is a flag. Retrospective audit is what DOJ ECCP expects.
4. "Granite Industrial will" is not a defense. The bar is what your company can stand behind in front of a federal prosecutor.

Key Legal References

Travel Act

18 USC § 1952

FCPA Hospitality

By analogy

DOJ ECCP

Compliance program review

Whistleblower

Federal & state protections

Due Diligence

DOJ Hallmark

Monitoring

Continuous improvement

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Course Complete · Module 2 of 2

That's the course.

Two modules, two angles. M1 was hospitality coming at you. M2 was going out. Travel Act test is the same: value, timing, recipient role.