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Why open data can stop corruption

There has been a big push in recent years to make government data open so citizens know where their tax money is spent– from snow collection in Chicago and broken street lights in Tbilisi, to what public officials declare about their assets in Mexico and their lobbying meetings with companies in the EU. While data […]

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Know your contractors: transparent ownership reduces corruption

Procurement is at the heart of the work that the World Bank and other international development banks do. Countries borrow from these multilateral organisations to develop the public works and services their citizens need: such as healthcare, education, sanitation and infrastructure. Through public procurement, countries use the borrowed funds to acquire expertise, labour and supplies […]

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Major economies move on money laundering, but what about the Cayman Islands?

The final two months of 2014 saw a surge of positive news for civil society whose collaborative and consolidated efforts over recent years to push for greater corporate transparency measures are now seeing the light.

Civil society has called for greater light to be shed on the real living people who ultimately own or control companies – the beneficial owners. Current levels of secrecy mean that global detection rates for illicit funds by law enforcement are as low as 1 percent for criminal proceeds.

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OECD sheds light on transnational corruption

This week, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published a ground-breaking report that dissects the massive and mostly hidden phenomenon of transnational corruption. Looking at more than 400 bribery cases across 41 countries that amounted to US$13.8 million per bribe, the report gives a glimpse inside the shadowy world of corrupt practices by […]

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Asia Pacific: growing economies, growing corruption

The 2014 Corruption Perceptions Index scores of countries from Asia Pacific, the world’s fastest growing region, are a resounding message to leaders that, despite many public declarations and commitments, not enough is being done to fight corruption. Out of the 27 Asia Pacific countries in the index, which account for nearly 61 per cent of […]

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The hard business of easy access

News of the arrest of 11 people, including high-ranking public officials, on suspicions of corruption in the issuing of so-called golden visas rocked Portugal this weekend. Officials stand accused of having taken bribes to supply residency permits to preferred millionaire foreign “investors”, revealing just one of the many problems with “Golden Visa” programmes that must […]

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G20 needs to boost banking supervision

Five major banks pay fines for currency manipulation On the eve of the Group of 20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia, a group of the world’s biggest banks have agreed to pay US$4.2 billion in fines to UK, US and Swiss authorities to settle charges that they fixed international currency markets over many years. This agreement […]

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No impunity: the law steps in to investigate

It’s getting harder for Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue to keep getting away with it. The son of the long-serving president of Equatorial Guinea has been forced by the US government to forfeit his cliff-top Malibu mansion, a rare Ferrari and several life-size Michael Jackson statues, all said by the US Department of Justice to have […]

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G20 whistleblowing laws – are they hitting or missing the mark? A lesson from Australia

Legal protection for whistleblowers living in the world’s biggest economies, the Group of 20, is patchy at best and needs to be strengthened to bolster the fight against corruption. The good news is that G20 leaders meeting in Brisbane in November can help make this happen. Ahead of the Brisbane leaders’ summit, Transparency International Australia […]

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G20 Meets to Act on Corporate Taxes – But More Needed on Corruption

The often highly complicated approaches used by giant corporations to lower their tax bills will be under attack at this weekend’s key meeting of finance ministers of the Group of 20 most powerful nations in Cairns, Australia. The G20 is expected to act to end systems where companies like Apple, Amazon, Starbucks and many others […]

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