Financial Transparency Coalition

Task Force member Tax Justice Network and the Centre of Investigative Journalism are offering journalists primarily from the developing world training in illicit finance, financial secrecy and asset recovery. Classes will take place from March 19th to March 23rd at City College in London. Instruction will take place in English.

From the the Center for Investigative Journalism website, the course outline:

Over four days you will be shown how to investigate corporate accounts, offshore activity and corporate corruption. We will show you where to find documents, how to analyse them and other practical tools to help uncover financial secrecy.

A combination of hands-on training and guidance from senior practitioners will give you the basis to investigate financial corruption as well as offering the opportunity to network with other journalists. This course is aimed at practicing journalists who have an interest in investigating business and the flow of money. Experience in financial reporting is an advantage but not a prerequisite.

The structure of the course is close to being finalised but will follow the format below:

Day 1 The pillars of Offshore and Illicit Finance. Understanding the scale of the problem, the techniques used to avoid, evade and launder and policy responses and relevant institutions

Day 2 Technical Day: Reading accounts and financial statements

Day 3 Investigating: Practitioners take attendees through how they brought home investigations in developing and developed countries

Day 4 Developing attendees story leads and targeting investigations

The deadline for application is January 11th. You can read more about the course here.