Frontline correspondent Lowell Bergman traces how bribery became standard practice in international business, focusing on the bribery scandal that brought down Siemens executives and the British investigation into BAE Systems' arms deals with Saudi Arabia. Interviews with former executives, investigators, and officials lay out how contracts worth billions depended on payments routed through shell companies and secret bank accounts to foreign officials, including members of the Saudi royal family tied to the al-Yamamah arms deal. Bergman follows the Justice Department's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prosecutions and asks why the United States, despite decades of anti-bribery law, still struggles to stop American firms from losing contracts to competitors who bribe freely. The film also tracks the British government's decision to shut down its own investigation into BAE, a move officials defended as protecting national security and diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. Bergman's interviews with corporate insiders who describe the mechanics of moving illicit payments across borders make the case that bribery abroad functions less as an aberration than as an accepted cost of doing business.