Gifting Policy: What Binds a European Buyer, and Where a Gift Stops Being a Gift

There is no EU-wide limit on the value of a corporate gift. What exists instead: a French duty to have a written policy, a British offence that reaches a company incorporated anywhere if any part of its business is carried on in the UK, and a German criminal code with no monetary floor at all. A policy built around a figure answers the one question none of those laws asks.

The figure that is not law, and the two that are

No EU instrument fixes a monetary ceiling on what a company may give. The EU's newest criminal-law instrument comes closest and declines: it leaves "undue advantage" undefined, and its only steer on small gifts sits in a recital, that an advantage is not undue "in cases of minimum gifts or gifts of very low value" (European Parliament and Council, 2026). A recital guides how a court reads the text; it is not a defence a company can invoke.

The EUR 50 and EUR 150 that circulate are real, and both are recipient-side. The Commission's guidelines for its own staff presume permission up to EUR 50, require explicit permission between EUR 50 and EUR 150, and refuse authorisation above EUR 150 (European Commission, 2012) — under a default of refusal, and a threshold is not a licence to accumulate gifts below it. Commissioners have their own EUR 150 ceiling, above which the gift is handed over and publicly registered (European Commission, 2018).

The UK offence that follows a branch

Section 7 of the Bribery Act 2010 makes a commercial organisation criminally liable for failing to prevent bribery by a person associated with it — wider than its own payroll — with a defence if it can "prove that C had in place adequate procedures designed to prevent persons associated with C from undertaking such conduct" (legislation.gov.uk, 2010). The reach is what European buyers miss: it catches "any other body corporate (wherever incorporated) which carries on a business, or part of a business, in any part of the United Kingdom" (legislation.gov.uk, 2010). A Lithuanian or German company with a UK branch is inside it, and the defence is a reverse burden: the procedures must be proved, so dated, trained and monitored.

The statutory guidance sets no figure, calling bona fide hospitality and promotional expenditure "an established and important part of doing business" while "the more lavish the hospitality or the higher the expenditure" the greater the inference of an intention to influence (UK Ministry of Justice, 2011). That passage is about bribery of a foreign public official, and it is policy rather than a safe harbour; its instruction is that organisations set their own standards.

France makes having the policy the obligation

Article 17 of Loi Sapin II requires the president, directeur general or gerant of a company with at least 500 employees — or in a group whose parent company is headquartered in France and whose workforce is at least 500 — and turnover or consolidated turnover above EUR 100 million to put eight measures in place, the first being a code of conduct defining and illustrating the conduct to be prohibited (Legifrance, 2016). Both thresholds must be met, and the duty sits on those named officers: above that size a gifts policy is not good practice but law.

The code must go into the company's reglement interieur, which pulls it through the staff-representative consultation procedure of the Code du travail: a French gifting policy cannot simply be emailed out. The anti-corruption agency's sanctions commission can order procedures adapted and fine the legal person up to EUR 1,000,000 and the officers up to EUR 200,000 (Legifrance, 2016).

Germany sets no floor, and its EUR 50 is a tax rule

Section 333(1) of the Strafgesetzbuch criminalises offering, promising or granting any advantage to a public official for the discharge of their duties, and no figure appears in it. What it offers instead is procedural: the act is not punishable where the recipient's competent authority approved acceptance in advance, or approves it on immediate disclosure (gesetze-im-internet.de, 2026). For a German public-sector recipient that approval is the control, not a value band.

Section 299(2) covers giving an advantage to an employee or agent of a business, again with no threshold (gesetze-im-internet.de, 2026). Since 2015 it carries a second limb: the advantage given for the employee acting in breach of duty to their own employer. The recipient's own rules are therefore part of the criminal perimeter — a gift they were obliged to refuse or declare can supply the breach, the best reason to ask a counterparty what their policy allows.

Germany's EUR 50 sits in the income tax act: gifts to non-employees are deductible only where everything given to that recipient in the financial year costs no more than EUR 50 in total (gesetze-im-internet.de, 2026) — an acquisition-cost test, per recipient per year, not per gift. Exceeding it costs a deduction; staying under it is no defence under either provision above. A VINGA Marlow GRS notebook sits below every line anyone has drawn, which is why the policy question rarely arises at this price.

Tenders, exclusion, and the directive now in force

In EU public procurement the conflict-of-interest duty is not yours. Article 24 of Directive 2014/24/EU requires Member States to ensure contracting authorities prevent, identify and remedy conflicts of interest, covering any interest of their own staff "which might be perceived to compromise their impartiality and independence" (EUR-Lex, 2014). A supplier is not an addressee, but the consequence lands there: Article 57(1)(b) requires exclusion of an operator convicted by final judgment of corruption, and 57(4)(e) permits it where a conflict of interest under Article 24 cannot be remedied by less intrusive measures. Where a final judgment has not itself set the exclusion period, the directive caps it at five years from the conviction for the mandatory grounds, and three years from the relevant event for the discretionary ones such as an unremedied conflict of interest. Losing a tender needs only the perception, which is why the rule while one is open is nothing at all, not even a VINGA Baltimore RCS pen set with a card.

The EU anti-corruption directive is no longer a proposal. Directive (EU) 2026/1021 was published on 11 May 2026 and has been in force since 1 June 2026; Member States must transpose it by 1 June 2028, and by 1 June 2029 for the obligations under Article 20(5) and Article 21 (EUR-Lex, 2026). It binds Member States and reaches companies through national law. Two parts to read now: active bribery in the private sector, and liability of legal persons where a failure of supervision by someone in a leading position made the offence possible. Denmark is not taking part.

What the policy has to decide

A workable policy is four decisions rather than a number. Who approves, with a level above which it goes to someone senior and a hard stop for public officials and live tenders. What is recorded: recipient, employer, occasion, cost, approver and date, where an auditor can read it. What is never acceptable at any value: cash or anything cash-like, anything to a public official without their authority's written approval, anything during a tender, anything off the books. And how a recipient's own rules are handled — ask in writing before artwork, and take a refusal without negotiating it.

Counterparties keep such rules for reasons beyond law: among Europeans, a 2025 Eurobarometer survey cited by Parliament found 69% believe corruption is widespread in their country and 66% think high-level cases are not pursued sufficiently (European Parliament, 2026). That is opinion about corruption in general, not a measure of gift practice, and the one EU-wide survey question asking where a gift becomes a bribe is about public officials. A conference run of stone paper notebooks and one item sent to a buyer mid-negotiation are different questions; the second is what our piece on client gifts and B2B relationships works through.

The purpose of a policy is not fear of prosecution. It is that an account manager in Lyon can decide a EUR 20 notebook for a nine-year customer is fine, at the time, without emailing legal. A published threshold, a named approver and a register do that; a figure from a blog does not, including ours. Most of what sits in the catalog is below every line anyone has drawn, and that is the easy half of this. The wording, the record and the recipient's own rules are the half nobody can sell you, and the half worth an hour with whoever owns your code of conduct before December. Contact us if the gifts themselves are the part you want priced.