The thing is, though, that 'rules that exist only on paper or which are selectively enforced' account for the vast majority of corporate ethics policies, and even a fair proportion of national legislation, if we take 'selectively enforced' to mean 'blind eye turned', 'covered up', 'avoided through hush money', 'evaded by hiring expensive lawyer' and all the other Get Out of Jail cards available to the privileged, whether that privilege is personal, social, professional, economic or political.

I'm always amused/sickened/entirely unsurprised when translating corporate antibribery policies to come across (in every single one) the phrase 'gifts and gratuities shall not be accepted, unless of a relatively modest value, and where refusal to accept would be deemed culturally inappropriate in the operational context' [actual wording may vary slightly].

Unless, in other words, you are in a corrupt country where corruption is the cultural norm, in which case tuck into the buffet, but try not to get caught and embarrass the company. How many million riyals are 'modest' to sheikh, and how easily are their cultural sensibilities offended?

It's also amusing to read disciplinary dismissal cases of managers who have become surplus to requirements, who all of a sudden are found to have been using company credit cards for hookers and blow (I exaggerate slightly).

Obviously they all do it, with the company's knowledge, their hubris telling them it won't be used in evidence against them.

As the line from Butch Cassidy has it: "Rules? In a knife fight?"