Financial Transparency Coalition

This afternoon, at Task Force member Transparency International’s International Anti-Corruption Conference in Brazil, the Task Force will be holding a panel discussion on illicit financial flows, corruption, and economic growth. Task Force Director Raymond Baker will be moderating the following panel:

• Raymond Baker, Director of Global Financial Integrity and the Task Force
• Heather Lowe, Director of Government Affairs of Global Financial Integrity and the Task Force
• Øygunn Brynildsen, Policy and Advocacy Officer at Eurodad
• Brigida Benitez, Steptoe & Johnson LLP
• Marlon Paz, Principle Integrity Officer at Inter-American Development Bank

How does tax evasion undermine economic growth in developing countries? What infrastructure of the global financial system is shared by both multinational corporations and organised crime? The financial architecture that allows money to move around the world is the same one used by corrupt dictators and criminals to hide funds and evade law enforcement. The movement of dirty money around the globe is enabled by mechanisms of the shadow financial system, which in turn undermine development initiatives. These systemic issues have enabled some individuals to become spectacularly rich, while the poor in developing countries – and to an ever-growing extent the developed world – struggle to secure life’s basic necessities.

This workshop begins with an introduction to illicit financial flows, by Raymond Baker, one of the world’s foremost experts on the subject. A series of short presentations follows, addressing tax as sustainable development financing; money laundering; recent developments in country-by-country reporting; trade mispricing as a tool for trade based money laundering; transparency in beneficial ownership; the mechanics of transfer pricing and the need for greater monitoring for the proceeds of corruption in the finances of public figures.

Panelists will put forward strategies for regulatory authorities and the private sector to further transparency and accountability in the international financial system and curtail illicit financial flows.