The rise in Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or FCPA enforcement continues with Alcatel-Lucent agreeing to pay $2.5 million to settle charges that it violated anti-bribery laws by footing the bill for hundreds of sight seeing trips taken by Chinese officials. All in the name of securing millions of dollars in contracts. The allegations centered around trips provided between 2000 and 2003 by Lucent Technologies, prior to its 2006 acquisition by Alcatel

According to the Department of Justice press release, these trips had nothing to do with inspecting Lucent's operations or doing any training. Instead, the money was spent on sight seeing trips to Disneyland, Universal Studios, the Grand Canyon, and in cities such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Washington DC, and New York City, at about $25,000 and $55,000 per trip.

The company has to pay a $1 million fine and a $1.5 million penalty to the Securities and Exchange Commission. As part of the deal, the Department of Justice won't prosecute.

This case raises a number of questions.

First, no-one would pay bribes if people weren't willing to take them. None of this would have come to light if it had been left to the Chinese. The crime was exposed by the US. Instead of turning a blind eye, the Chinese authorities need to prosecute the bribe takers, says Wu Jiayin in the Shanghai Daily.

"That commercial bribery has become an unwritten rule for doing business in China is a black mark against the Chinese anti-graft authorities. If bribe takers are not punished, sporadic exposes of such corruption scandals will do nothing to deter future offenders."

Given that baksheesh seems to a national practice in China, you wouldn't hold your breath.

The other issue is whether the deal actually lets the company off too lightly. As Philip Mattera noted last week in CorpWatch, these sorts of deals allow companies to pay their fines and portray themselves as paragons of virtue. It's about buying "instantaneous redemption".