Archive | Private sector RSS feed for this section

Corruption and the Olympics

On the eve of London 2012, Robert Barrington, director of external affairs at Transparency International UK, ponders the corruption risks inherent in London’s staging of the Olympics games. The Olympic Games are a wonderful celebration of excellence in sport.  But is there a danger that corruption may have tainted the Games?  As London prepares to […]

Read full story Comments { 3 }

Why doesn’t Germany support detailed transparency for the oil, mining industries?

***Update*** The US government has recently sent a letter to the German government pushing them to support the publication of payments on a project by project and not just a country by country basis. An old industrial dynasty from the German Ruhr region might play a role in blasting the envisaged transparency regulations for the […]

Read full story Comments { 4 }

Where do Multinational Corporations go on their holidays?

…and how much money do they spend when they get there? Despite their global reach, Transparency International’s recent Transparency in Corporate Reporting report – which assesses 105 multinational companies’ anti-corruption reporting –  shows that these companies reveal very little information about their financial and non-financial contribution to the countries in which they operate. The European […]

Read full story Comments { 9 }

In wake of scandal, will South Korean politicians pledge a new start?

Corruption is high on the South Korean agenda right now. Last week police said they were investigating a large-scale corruption case involving 30 government bodies. Two weeks ago the brother of South Korea’s president, himself a senior politician, was charged with accepting $525,000 in bribes from two struggling savings banks. We, Transparency International South Korea, […]

Read full story Comments { 0 }

Georgia: Market concentration in pharmaceutical sector drives up prices

Health care is an issue that affects everyone and expenses for medicines put a heavy burden on households, especially in developing countries. Georgia is no exception. Having inherited a bloated Soviet-style health care system, the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili has sought to reform the health care sector through large-scale privatizations. Seeking to shed light […]

Read full story Comments { 4 }
Annual report 2011 image

What does corruption mean to you?

Corruption. Inevitable? Unstoppable?  We don’t think so – and we want to hear your ideas for new ways of talking about it. Launched today, our 2011 Annual Report offers a snapshot of our activities around the world in 2011 – from the 3,500 election monitors we recruited in Guatemala through social media, to the 17 year […]

Read full story Comments { 2 }

The financial sector: a culture of transparency?

The recent global financial crisis highlighted the need to broaden the discussion about regulation and oversight of the financial system. Transparency and related risk assessments of financial institutions have surged to the top of the agenda. In our study on transparency and disclosure of measures for reducing corruption risk among the world’s largest companies published […]

Read full story Comments { 8 }

Georgia: local residents fall victim of illegal property seizures

In early 2011, Transparency International Georgia began to actively work towards the better protection of property rights. In May of this year, TI Georgia visited several west Georgian settlements (Anaklia, Grigoleti and Gonio) where they met with affected local populations. Gia Gvilava and Eka Bokuchava, both lawyers at the office, report from their visits and […]

Read full story Comments { 0 }

Fail Again. Fail Better: Reform of the EU Banking Sector.

Samuel Beckett’s exhortation to “fail better” could also be applied to the EU banking sector. Time and time again, troubled financial institutions have been bailed out by the taxpayer because they have been perceived as “too important to fail”. The ability of a large number of banks to benefit from excessive risk-taking without fully absorbing […]

Read full story Comments { 4 }

G20: Tackling tax evasion?

This week the heads of state from the G20 are meeting in Mexico, where we hope they will take action to meet their 2009 promise to end bank secrecy. One step already taken is making tax evasion a predicate offence for money laundering. What does that mean? Money laundering is defined as taking the proceeds […]

Read full story Comments { 1 }