Tag Archives | featured

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 […]

Read full story Comments { 1 }

Campaign for transparency in Maldives pays off

Access to information (ATI) is not simply a piece of legislation. A country’s passing of such an act signals a change in culture from one of secrecy to one of transparency, and a strengthening of democracy. ATI is the freedom of citizens to access information held by public bodies, and is quickly becoming a global […]

Read full story Comments { 0 }
Image of cyclone victims

Bangladesh: Cutting off our heads to cure a headache?

Three years ago my team visited Khulna, a district in the southern coastal region of Bangladesh. We went to meet the communities trying to rebuild their lives there after their villages were almost completely destroyed by Cyclone Aila in 2009. To assist the rebuilding, the Bangladesh government lent its support, channelled through a trust fund […]

Read full story Comments { 0 }

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 […]

Read full story Comments { 0 }

How the G20 could unmask the corrupt

The G20 leaders meet in Australia later this year. Pressure is growing on them to build on the commitments from last June’s G8 Summit on beneficial ownership. That’s an obscure phrase for an ugly truth: corrupt individuals from around the world are able to hide their money through complex corporate and trust structures, such that when an […]

Read full story Comments { 3 }

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 […]

Read full story Comments { 1 }

From CEO to whistleblower

Shortly after being appointed CEO of the Japan-based company Olympus, Michael Woodford discovered a massive case of fraud within the company. When he tried to raise the alarm internally, calling on board members to explain the exorbitant fees – amounting to hundreds of millions of US dollars – paid to obscure companies, some of them […]

Read full story Comments { 1 }

Three steps to (start) recovering stolen assets

It takes a long time and great deal of good will, legal procedures and paper work to return stolen assets to the countries where they belong. In April 2014, Switzerland commenced the return of US$40 million of Tunisian assets linked to the former Zine El Abidine Ben Ali regime, which had been frozen in the […]

Read full story Comments { 2 }

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 […]

Read full story Comments { 1 }

India’s next government must take on corruption

  India has passed the half-way point in its chaotic elections where 814 million people are registered to vote. The last polling day is 12 May and results will be announced on 16 May. One of the big questions is how the newly elected politicians will deliver on their campaign promises to tackle corruption. Too […]

Read full story Comments { 3 }