**8. Corruption: innocent blindness, ignorancia affectada, wilful blindness**

In cases of partnerships, joint ventures, agents/consultant agreement, agency agreement, subsidiaries, outsourcing one party may be or may not be aware that the other has engaged in some bribe payments relating to the common business to win a contract, to have an inflated contract claim approved, and or to secure planning permission. Each time one is in some broad-based engagement with other parties there is a need to check how the other(s) are, lest you become culpable for guilt by composition. There are many instances that need due diligence because there are many other scenarios that carry blackmailing, blacklisting and serious legal consequences. Due diligence need to be taken to ward off the risks of being blamed and penalised for some form of negligence where: the company, partner or all of the others are aware that a fellow member of the joint venture has paid a bribe in order for the joint venture to win the contract, a subsidiary in another country is paying bribes to win contracts, and or a subcontractor paid a bribe to a representative of the project owner to ensure that the company won the tender.
