Bribery and corruption are not just morally indefensible but bad for your business. That is the message Transparency International, the anti-graft campaigner, is determined business will internalise and, perforce, implement. But is it true?

TI's report, launched yesterday, on the information disclosure practices of 42 leading oil companies, at first glance gives a mixed answer. Its research shows that only Royal Dutch Shell of the majors is in the pre-mier league for revenue and payments transparency, whereas BP, Chev-ron and Total are in the middle, and ExxonMobil is playing in the bottom division, alongside China's CNOOC and Russia's Lu-koil. Yet these apparent differences do not seem to have had any effect on their profits or share prices.