DP3

DecisionPoint
http://proethica.org/ontology/cases#DecisionPoint

DP3

May Roe ethically justify offering gifts to foreign government officials on the grounds that the practice is legally permitted under local law and universally followed by competing engineering firms in the foreign market?

Roe is considering whether the fact that the gift-giving practice is legally permissible under the foreign country's law, and that competing engineering firms from other countries routinely comply with the practice, provides sufficient ethical justification for his firm to do the same. Roe must assess whether host-country legal permissibility or competitive normalization of the practice among peers constitutes a valid defense under the NSPE Code of Ethics.

Treat the combination of foreign legal permissibility and universal competitor compliance as sufficient ethical justification for offering the gifts, reasoning that the NSPE Code cannot reasonably require conduct that places the firm at a decisive competitive disadvantage in a legally permissible foreign market.

Recognize that neither the legality of the practice under foreign law nor its prevalence among competing firms transforms it into ethically permissible conduct under the NSPE Code, and apply the same ethical standard that would govern domestic procurement regardless of the competitive cost.

Apply the reasonable-men contextual threshold test from Case 60-9 to evaluate whether the gifts constitute prohibited inducements, assessing their size relative to circumstances and their direct connection to contract award, before reaching a conclusion about ethical permissibility.

Roe (International Engineering Firm Principal)