Selling to BT

Gifts & Hospitality

In BT we don’t tolerate bribery of any kind.
We never offer or accept gifts, payments or hospitality to encourage or reward a decision.
We have a standard on Gifts & Hospitality.
We have a guidance on Gifts & Hospitality.

The standard sets out the rules for all BT people (including suppliers, agents and joint venture partners) giving or receiving gifts or hospitality. Please take a few minutes to read the standard in full, and ask everyone in your team to do the same.
The key things to remember are that you must not:

Give or receive a gift or hospitality if it is intended to influence you or the person receiving it.
Give or receive lavish or extravagant gifts or hospitality which is, or may be seen to be, inappropriate in the circumstances. Think about whether a competitor or the press would consider it appropriate, reasonable and proportionate.
Give or receive gifts or hospitality if either you or the other person is involved in on-going commercial negotiations or it could influence the decision.
Offer any gifts or hospitality where you know it would be wrong for the person to accept.
Break any laws or regulations. If you give a gift to someone in another country then it must not break either your country’s or the other country’s laws and regulations.
Give or receive a gift of cash or shares.
Ask for a gift or give someone a gift that they have asked for. BT doesn’t encourage giving gifts unless it’s culturally appropriate.
During a procurement adjudication period, the BT adjudication team will not accept any gifts or hospitality from the suppliers involved. The BT adjudication team includes anyone who has direct influence on the decision making and selection process. This restriction applies until any resultant contract is formally awarded and declines are issued to unsuccessful suppliers

Ask the Ethics Team a Question

The document is now replaced with the latest version. Previous version can be found in Archive.

Our expectations

Gifts & Hospitality

Archive