For example, in the city of Grenoble in 1996, a former mayor and government minister and a senior executive of a private water company both received prison sentences for receiving and giving bribes to award a water contract to a subsidiary of the company. In March 2000, the city finally sacked the water company, and brought the water service back under public control a case of re-municipalisation. In Milan, in neighbouring Italy, police are investigating politicians alleged to have received bribes from a private company for a concession to build a new sanitation plant. As privatization of water and sanitation has spread beyond Europe, the European multinationals have been the beneficiaries. The incentive for, and practice of bribery, has accompanied this expansion.
Allegations surround many other privatized water schemes, on all continents.
In India, for example, the state of Karnataka is reviewing a decision to grant a water project to a UK-based company after it was alleged that there were irregularities in the tendering of the contract. 6 International initiatives International initiatives to combat bribery are welcome, but their impact on multinationals is limited. The TI Bribe Payers Index , for instance, ranks the leading exporting countries in terms of the degree to which their companies are perceived to be paying bribes abroad. However, the Index does not name the private companies and multinationals involved in corrupt deals. This was perceived as having put US companies at a commercial disadvantage, as their European competitors have had no such legislation to deter them from using bribery to obtain business.