Financial Transparency Coalition

When it comes to policy change, what should come first: financial regulation or corporate responsibility? I have argued for corporate responsibility—morality, in fact—before. My conclusion was that corporations, like people, do have the duty to act morally. I argued that there is such a thing as moral behavior when it comes to business and when we, as consumers, should reflect our own brands of morality in our purchasing decisions. The same thing should be true of investing. And when it comes to these funds, some firms have already led the way with “socially responsible” investment firms. Members...

Lord of War, a 2005 film starring Nicolas Cage, tells the story of Yuri Orlov, a man born in Soviet Ukraine, but raised in America, who sells illicit weapons to terrorist groups, corrupt African leaders, and criminal organizations. He describes himself as an “equal opportunity merchant of death,” selling to whoever and whatever side that is willing to pay. Orlov becomes tangled up with several criminal men, including a Colombian drug lord who insists on paying him in cocaine and a West African Dictator, who compensates Orlov with blood diamonds. Through a voice-over, Orlov describes one method he...

In America in the 1920s, during the years of prohibition, bootlegging became a pervasive and widespread problem. Bootlegging, named after the practice of concealing illicit liquor in boot tops, was the illegal traffic in liquor in violation of restrictions on sale and transportation of alcohol. As with drugs, human trafficking, or endangered species, when a government restricts the supply of a good with a demand, a black market emerges. Though there was a generous domestic supply—underground distilleries often made liquor out of corn and of course there was “medical” whiskey prescribed by doctors—many Americans got liquor from...

For the first time in its history, France has admitted a lawsuit brought by an anti-corruption agency against foreign nationals for money-laundering and embezzlement within the country’s boarders. Transparency International (TI), a Task Force member and prominent anti-corruption campaign organization, launched the suit in May of 2009. It brings money laundering charges against three African leaders: the Republic of the Congo President Denis Sassou Nguesso, Equatorial Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema, and Gabon’s late president Omar Bongo. TI maintains each leader has used his position of power to enrich himself with the complicity of the French government...