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Messi and the International Impunity System

The ongoing prosecution of football super star Lionel Messi for alleged tax evasion made global headlines last week. Messi and his father Jorge are accused of evading 4.2 million euros (US$5.6m) in tax on sponsorship earnings in court documents submitted by the prosecutor. The alleged tax evasion scheme was based on using a web of […]

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Learning to lead the fight against corruption

Last week many of us experienced strong emotions in a very short space of time in Vilnius, Lithuania. A group of people from different countries and backgrounds joined the Transparency International School on Integrity with a common commitment to make a change in society by combating corruption. I would like to share my own experience: […]

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World Cup winners and losers

The 2014 World Cup had it all. Goals galore on the pitch, surprise results, tears and triumphs: a cornucopia of sporting excitement for a worldwide audience of more than a billion, culminating in a deserved win for an exceptional team from Germany. But it also had a series of own goals off the pitch by […]

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G20 anti-corruption meeting: progress, but without ambition

The G20 is making progress in the fight against corruption. However for all the talk, the representatives of the world’s leading economies are not setting the bar high enough. From our point of view, unless the G20 mandates and enforces greater corporate transparency, corrupt public officials, gangsters, drug dealers and terrorists will continue to misuse […]

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Czech construction job: honest official makes sure citizens win

Unhošť is a small, sleepy town about 20 kilometres from Prague’s city centre – home to around 3,500 inhabitants. Normally, this is a peaceful place, but a controversy a few years ago has taken its toll on the community. It all began when a newly elected politician decided to look into the town’s finances. He […]

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German-Greek arms deal corruption allegations stir renewed debate

The Self Propelled Howitzer “PzH 2000” of German Defense Company Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) “sets a worldwide standard”, according to the company. Athens bought the howitzers a decade ago for €200 million, a deal which is now the centre of allegations about dubious flows of money in connection with two former German parliamentarians. The PzH 2000 […]

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Corruption fight takes on new life in Ukraine ahead of election

Chris Sanders spoke with Oleksii Khmara, Executive Director of TI Ukraine, during a recent trip to Berlin. Despite the unrest in his country, the fight against corruption continues and civil society have a stronger voice in future developments than ever before. In less than a week Ukraine goes to the polls at a time when […]

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Public consultation in Jersey: chance to come clean

The use of shell companies to mask the true owners of assets is still on top of the political agenda and interest in the issue continues to grow. This week the UK government announced further details of its plan to implement a public registry of company ownership. This is important because shell companies can facilitate […]

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Fighting for workers’ rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Imagine you were asked to work seven days a week, with no lunch breaks and no overtime pay. That you were forbidden to take a five-minute pause, or even to sit down. And if you complained, you would be fired on the spot. Until recently, this was the situation that faced four female employees of […]

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Teaching integrity in schools: Lessons from Italy

How do you talk to students about corruption? This is one of the questions and challenges that we at Transparency International Italy tried to answer with their project “A path towards legality. My school adopts TI-It”. Since our founding in 1996, we have been implementing projects in the education sector, as we believe that the education […]

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