Financial Transparency Coalition

The General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the attached outcome document for the 2010 Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit by consensus on September 22, 2010. The document puts forth an action agenda for achieving the MDGs by 2015; the agenda includes tackling the issue of illicit financial flows as one of the action items.

No one is perfect. That’s why it shouldn’t come as a surprise to you that early this morning Italian authorities seized $30.18 million from a Vatican bank account for possible ties to money laundering. It should also not come as a surprise to you that the Vatican bank’s chairman and director general are now under investigation for failure to meet Italy’s anti-money laundering laws. Surprised anyway? You shouldn’t be. Here’s why. In the morning of June 21st, 1982 in London, a postal clerk on his way to work was crossing the Blackfriars Bridge when he noticed a...

Yaoundé, Cameroon, sits at the heart of Central Africa. The region is rich with mineral and forestry wealth which has been exploited ruthlessly by colonial powers and powerful corporations for centuries. You need only read the short historical paragraph on Yaoundé's Wikipedia entry to get a sense of this past and present intrusion by external powers. Much of Central Africa's wealth disappears offshore, and constant exploitation has exposed the region to deep rooted political and commercial corruption. This is the context in which tax justice researchers and campaigners...

London and New York are still the world’s leading cities for banking and other financial services but Hong Kong is breathing down their necks, according to the latest Global Financial Centres Index