> To this day I try to get my finance team to send gifts to the AP team of our clients.
1. Many, many big companies require vendors to agree to codes of conduct that explicitly prohibit such gifts.
2. If the customer were to file for bankruptcy protection, the trustee (or debtor-in-possession) likely would characterize recent payments as "avoidable preference" payments and seek to claw them back — with claw-back being the presumption and the vendors having the burden of proving that they're entitled to keep the payments (which is somewhat of a PITA). [0]
3. If the recipient of such a gift happens to be a foreign "official," then the criminal penalties of the (U.S.) Foreign Corrupt Practices Act might become salient. [1]
In my experience, the vast majority of companies will not be reporting 'dinner' as a gift, probably not even golf. Maybe 'material gifts' i.e. things that are directly gifted that have value, but even a small basket might not get reported.
1. Many, many big companies require vendors to agree to codes of conduct that explicitly prohibit such gifts.
2. If the customer were to file for bankruptcy protection, the trustee (or debtor-in-possession) likely would characterize recent payments as "avoidable preference" payments and seek to claw them back — with claw-back being the presumption and the vendors having the burden of proving that they're entitled to keep the payments (which is somewhat of a PITA). [0]
3. If the recipient of such a gift happens to be a foreign "official," then the criminal penalties of the (U.S.) Foreign Corrupt Practices Act might become salient. [1]
[0] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/pre-bankruptcy-payme...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_Corrupt_Practices_Act