The open secret was that to do business in Saudi Arabia, bribes had to be paid. It was such an open secret the King of Saudi Arabia mentioned it to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who then included it in his memoirs. Put another way, there was a reason that Transparency International ranked the Kingdom at 62 of the 176 countries listed in its most recent Corruption Perceptions Index. Yet most western companies simply chalked it up as the cost of doing business in the Kingdom and its oil riches.
