Financial Transparency Coalition

WASHINGTON, DC – Nearly 250 prosecutors, civil society representatives and other officials gathered in Washington, DC this week for a World Bank-hosted meeting of the International Corruption Hunters Alliance. Speakers at the three-day event included World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick, United States Senator Patrick Leahy, Transparency International Chair Huguette Labelle, EU MP Eva Joly, ICC Prosecutor General Luis M. Ocampo, Fridtjov Thorkildsen of Norad, and dozens of other notable corruption fighters. Overall the event was a good opportunity to hear what effort the Bank is making to curb bribery, to better understand initiatives underway in...

Who is Mina Corp and why is the U.S. government doing business with it? Last week Andrew Higgins and Walter Pincus at the Washington Post wrote an article highlighting the U.S. military’s connection with this fairly mysterious company. The Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs of the U.S. House of Representatives' Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is investigating the contracts awarded to Mina Corp and its associated form Red Star Enterprises and is expected to publish a report on its findings sometime this month. While we wait for the report from Congressional investigators,...

In just four short weeks the Task Force will host its second annual conference, and we want you to be there! Titled Achieving Transparency: A Dialogue for Action, the 2010 annual conference of the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development will take place at the Radisson Blu Hotel Norge in beautiful Bergen, Norway from September 28-29, 2010. The current financial crisis evidences the same lack of transparency in the global financial system that has affected developing countries for decades. Concrete, practical means exist for enhancing transparency to the benefit of rich and poor nations alike. Speakers and...

I read an article from The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) today detailing the settlement of charges by United States and New York prosecutors against UK-based Barclays PLC for accepting money from sanctioned countries. The bank was accused of concealing the origins of and then accepting money from Cuba, Libya, Iran and other sanctioned countries whose money may not legally enter the United States.

According to U.S. prosecutors, Barclays followed instructions from foreign banks to omit their names from payment messages. Barclays also routed certain payments through an internal account so they would appear to be coming from...