A WEST African friend of mine showed me his business plan for a tourism development back in his own country.

My eye alighted on the line called security. “That looks cheap,” I suggested.

“Cheap,” he quipped, “no, I get it for free. That’s a charge paid to the police chief, who then sends his patrols along.”

Compared to the RTZ four, who were sentenced to lengthy prison terms in China on bribery charges earlier this week, the folks at Innospec have got away lightly.

The petrochemicals company was fined just £8.6m by a British court for paying backhanders in Indonesia.

The outcome of the court hearing has produced much hand- wringing at Innospec’s global head office in Ellesmere Port, but the protestations of regret look a bit late.

Innospec and RTZ are the ones who have been caught, but the fact is corporate bribery is a way of life in some overseas territories.

I recall a conversation with a very senior oil industry executive who told me that “dual accounting” was a big problem within his multinational business.

One set of “clean” accounts was kept to show the auditors and any other authorities that came knocking, while the real set, showing all the bribes, was kept in the bottom drawer.

The same is true of the alleged bribery committed by BAE Systems in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world.

Now that these things are being clamped down on and executives are being sent to jail, all companies will have to think again about such practices. Many of our global firms have been world leaders in the practice of bribes, gifts and kickbacks.

The reason the French and Americans complain so bitterly about our overseas trade successes is that hey are simply not as good at it as we are. The problem is that staying on the straight and narrow path and keeping things transparent, above board and honest will put us at a huge competitive disadvantage. It will undoubtedly cost industry jobs and profits.

While Britain’s police and lawmakers have generally ignored the issue, things are now changing rapidly. It is a good thing that western nations are using their own judicial systems to influence and change the behaviour of their companies overseas. We have to set standards. If we don’t, who will?

The same culture of corruption can pervade some societies to the point that it diverts humanitarian disaster relief.

What is most surprising about the Innospec case is the way that improvements in corporate governance standards don’t seem to have taken a complete grip on the boardrooms of Britain. Clearly there are still some nooks and crannies where dark practices continue.

So those new tougher laws include the new offence of corporate negligence in failing to prevent bribery.

It means companies would have to prove they had adequate checks in place or face prosecution along with the individuals directly responsible for bribery.

A committee of MPs has already examined the Bill and recommended the need to prove negligence be removed, throwing the burden of proof on to the company to show it was not at fault.

Nor is it just China where guilty executives can find themselves languishing in prison for a long time.

The US authorities have become much tougher in recent years. Ask those who brought Enron down.

So it is time to step in time with the growing movement and learn to compete using honest good products and prices.