Corruption

Corruption is dishonesty or deliberate dereliction of duty for personal gain by a government official or a private entity official. Corruption broadly includes fraud, bribery, or deliberate misreporting. In a corrupt act, a binding duty is violated by someone who receives an unwarranted personal benefit. To define corruption concretely involves specifying the duty and the personal benefit and why and how the personal benefit is a violation of the duty.

In the case of a government official, corruption is violation of a sworn duty to uphold the public interest. In the case of a private entity official, corruption is violation of a contractual duty to uphold the lawful interests of the entity or its owners. In either circumstance, corruption involves specifically an agent's violation of some ...