Financial Transparency Coalition

It’s been months since the ousting of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych. As the walls of the old regime come down, more and more stories of anonymous companies, often those with no walls at all, continue to come to light. A new report from the AP has highlighted the massive extent that anonymous companies—fake companies set up to funnel money undetected—were, and still are, a part of Ukraine’s rampant corruption problem.

The C20, a global network of civil society organizations, have released finalized versions of the position papers that will guide advocacy efforts ahead of the G20 summit in Brisbane, Australia. The most noteworthy for our work at the FTC comes within the C20's paper on 'Governance', which incorporates a number of financial transparency issues.

The term G7 sounds a little weird. We've been calling it the Group of 8 (G8) since Russia joined in 1998, but now that Russia has been indefinitely suspended, the group is one member short. Undoubtedly, the very issue that stemmed the name change, the crisis in Ukraine, dominated much of the two-day talks, which finished today in Brussels. But just last year, G8 leaders were talking about another important issue, one that, at first glance, might not seem connected to the crisis in Ukraine: transparency of the real owners of companies.

Earlier this year, our colleagues at the Tax Justice Network released an app to give you access to the latest while you are on the go. Although the first release was just for Android phones, they've just announced that a version for the iPhone is now available for download. You can find it at the iTunes store here. You can also check out the licensing agreement, instructions, creative commons licensing, and more here.