Tag Archives | companies

Will Britain tackle tax evasion?

317 Pressure on what are alternatively called ‘offshore havens’, ‘tax havens305’ or ‘secrecy jurisdictions’ is reaching an unprecedented level. There are more than fifty such havens world wide, and governments are finally coming around to the idea voiced by activists that tougher regulation is needed. The economic crisis has lent urgency to the cause. Britain’s […]

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Transparency comes calling on telecoms, banking sectors

Our recent report on corporate transparency has exposed lamentably low levels of country-by-country reporting across the business spectrum. This means 69 of the world’s biggest companies operate in India, for example, but only two disclose how much money they made there, and not one discloses Indian tax payments on their main corporate website (see the […]

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Big banks: Where does the buck stop?

After four years of economic crisis and financial scandal, finally some good news. Eighty-five per cent of bank employees surveyed believe that their companies have an ethical duty to fight corruption. That is a finding from our survey of 3,000 businesspeople in 30 countries: Putting Corruption out of Business (see what businesspeople from other sectors […]

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Record-breaking whistleblower award completes the circle

On 12 September 2012, the US Internal Revenue Service awarded Bradley Birkenfeld $104 million for providing information on how the Swiss bank UBS AG helped thousands of US citizens hide billions of dollars from tax authorities. Mark Worth, Transparency International’s Whistleblower Programme Coordinator, discusses what this means for whistleblowers and would-be whistleblowers everywhere. The big […]

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Bribery is bad for business

We ask businesspeople where they lose out to competitors’ corruption. One of the biggest corruption stories in the world this year was the allegation that Walmart paid bribes totalling US$24 million in its Mexican operations. It makes you wonder how many other companies lost out because of those bribes. A new survey gives us some […]

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Foreign bribes in the Middle East & North Africa – Not just a regional problem

Recovery of stolen assets is a prime concern for Arab governments at the moment but what role did multinationals play in bribing former corrupt officials? A six month joint investigation published this week in British papers revealed that the country’s authorities have not been proactive in seizing key assets by the former Egyptian president Hosni […]

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Better anti-corruption reporting but is it credible?

Scandals such as the revelations of banks misleading regulators on LIBOR are further eroding people’s trust in companies. Two in three Europeans, for example, believe that corruption is part of their country’s business culture. One of steps for companies to restore trust is by publicly reporting on their anti-bribery measures. Once a company has done […]

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Why investors should care about transparency

On July 10, Transparency International issued a report showing that the world’s biggest companies are disclosing more about their measures for preventing corruption, but not so much of their financial data in the countries where they operate. Investors should take note of these findings. Risks associated with corruption can have devastating damaging effects on a […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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