Financial Transparency Coalition

Speaking at the African Tax Administration Forum yesterday, Oupa Magashula, the South African Revenue Service (SARS) Commissioner announced his country intends to collaborate with the rest of the African continent to decrease tax evasion by harmonizing their tax policies. This, they believe, would make it “harder for companies to exploit the variation in legislation to lower their tax burden.” The Commissioner told reporters “The main thing is to avoid jurisdiction hopping, where people go shopping around for the lowest tax.” Magashula is not without his share of successes. Although SARS had already drastically improved efficiency and compliance...

In the spring of last year, the United Kingdom passed the Bribery Act of 2010, which the Ministry of Justice hoped would reform “the criminal law to provide a new, modern and comprehensive scheme of bribery offences that will enable courts and prosecutors to respond more effectively to bribery at home or abroad.” Before the creation of this Act, the UK’s policy on anti-bribery was based on a body of three laws: the Public Bodies Corrupt Practices Act 1889, the Prevention of Corruption Act 1906 and the Prevention of Corruption Act 1916. David Aaronberg, a UK criminal attorney,...

There is trouble in the world of microfinance. Muhammad Yunus, the founder of Grameen Bank, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, and a pioneer of microlending, is in some hot water. Earlier this month, the government of his home country, Bangladesh, ordered him out of his post as head of Grameen bank for failure to comply with the nation’s retirement laws, which mandate the retirement of company heads at the age of 60. Yunus has already met his 70th birthday. Yunus' Grameen Bank (which, incidentally, also funded the Grameenphone, a topic of another blog) is a pioneer in...

As the regime in Libya continues its bloody campaign against rebels and protestors, we have seen and heard more from Saif al-Islam Gaddafi—the son of dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi—than we have from his father. In the past weeks Saif has appeared on ABC for an interview and given several speeches, including an angry rant in Tripoli where, brandishing an automatic weapon, he appears to spur a crowd of supporters to commit violence against the opposition. This Saif, whose angry ramblings seem strikingly similar to the unhinged speeches of his father, is quite different from the man who, until...