Both administrative law and criminal law set limits on public employees’ acceptance of gifts or other privileges. The core rules in these two areas of the law are the same. The elements of the crime of bribery refer essentially to the administrative law’s rules on the acceptance of gifts. It is probably the same underlying standard that constitutes the measure for the extent to which public employees can accept gifts. However, criminal law may require additional security and clarification in the cause of action for liability. Acceptance of gifts in a number of cases can only be sanctioned under administrative law and not criminal law. This article will analyse these issues and will attempt to define the criteria for determining when the acceptance of gifts is impermissible under both administrative law and criminal law.

Over the years, there has been considerable discussion about the extent and exact nature of the responsibilities of the auditor to detect fraud. The purpose of our study is to examine how the courts and professional bodies in a principle-based legal system respond to the change in the audit promulgations introducing proactive responsibilities in relation to fraud. We observe the outcome of actual fraud cases in which the court system and professional bodies in Denmark establish the responsibilities of auditors. The data set includes all publicized cases in the period 1996-2006. We find that the Danish audit profession has adopted the new proactive responsibilities identified by the standard setters, whilst the courts and the professional bodies seem to see 'the changes' as mere clarifications of existing responsibilities. The proactive responsibilities are not further accelerated by prescriptive court rulings.

With the background knowledge that Denmark is one of the least corrupt nations in the world, this article explores the case of a mayor that for eight years worked "miracles" for "his" municipality, but was later revealed to have built this community on circumvention of control mechanisms and laws. For this (and for his overwhelming consumption of expensive wines at the taxpayers' expense) he was later sentenced to 4 years of imprisonment. He was not driven by personal economic gain, but more likely of a mixture between creating a municipality of his dreams and the almost absolute power that he ended up with just before the scandal hit the headlines. The case was revealed by two journalists from a yellow newspaper, but very soon police and other authorities as well as his fellow politicians followed up on the revelations and his former political friends turned their back on him. It is not the story of a mayor that was bribedbut of a mayor that turned out to be "corrupt" in a wider sense of the word.

See absract in article.

Review of Patrycja Szarek-Mason: The European Union’s Fight Against Corruption. The Evolving Policy Towards Member States and Candidate Countries