Gifts and hospitality

1. Regulatory Concept & Core Standards

This video's topic is gifts and hospitality. By the end, you should be able to assess gift categories and official connections. We will connect the information available, the criterion guiding the decision and the action that must be recorded. Follow the case and compare your answer with the proposed response. Conflicts connect private interests with a person’s decision-making role. The public/private interests law applies to defined declarants. Distinguish private internal policy from statutory public-sector rules.

Article 13 prohibits gifts and services linked to declarants’ duties subject to specific exceptions. EUR 150 is not a universal supplier-gift allowance.

Apply the following rule: Protection concerns information obtained in a work context about breaches threatening or harming the public interest. Defending purely personal interests does not constitute a report under this Act. Article 3 covers various fields, including international sanctions and restrictive measures since May 2025. Limits on disclosing particular information also apply.

2. Practical Implementation & Procedure

Identify giver, purpose, decision connection and category. Check protocol, tradition or representation exceptions and internal rules. Assess value together with category. Before moving on, turn this procedure into a sequence you could explain to a colleague. Identify the first check, the action that depends on its outcome and the record that allows the decision to be reconstructed. Follow the sequence on screen and identify the point where an error would change the result.

At each step, compare the information available with what is still needed for the decision. Arrange continuity when the designated worker is absent. A substitute receives only the information needed for the task, and their actions must remain verifiable.

Mark an unanswered question as a fact to verify. Identify who could confirm it and what access they actually need. A correct exercise choice alone does not show that the reasoning is understood. If the answer depends on an additional fact, state that condition explicitly.

For the workplace task, name the person who can approve the change and the person who will check that it works. Produce a concrete verifiable action, rather than only a promise to follow rules. Check effects on access rights and user information. Record questions that your organisation still needs to resolve.

3. Case Study & Compliance Action

A supplier offers a EUR 100 ticket during evaluation. Being below EUR 150 does not itself make it permissible. Now read the case carefully. Separate established facts from information you would still need to confirm. Do not add motives or events that have not been described. This distinction matters when choosing a response proportionate to the information available.

The exercise is as follows: Is every gift below EUR 150 allowed? Choose an answer and write one sentence explaining it. During the pause, compare your choice with the criteria we have just considered. Also think about the material you would retain to explain the decision later.

No. The threshold belongs to specific exceptions. Check category and duty connection first. Covered higher-value protocol gifts become state or municipal property.

One mistake to avoid is: turning a value threshold into general permission.

Now apply the national rule to a second decision. A report is considered protected solely because it mentions corruption. Which assessment is needed?

Assess the work connection, public interest, reasonable belief in the information’s truth and conditions of the chosen route. A category alone is insufficient. A purely personal dispute differs from a breach threatening the public interest, although one report may contain both. Record the assessment grounds and specific missing fact. Referring an ordinary complaint does not remove confidentiality duties.