Financial Transparency Coalition

LONDON - Norwegian state-owned oil company Statoil has formally distanced itself from a U.S. oil industry lawsuit that seeks to scrap a landmark transparency and anti-corruption law established in the United States.

LONDON - As the scandal grows around a Nigerian oil deal involving Shell and Italian firm Eni who made a US$1.1 billion payment that ended up in the accounts of a company controlled by a corrupt former Nigerian Oil Minister, the Dutch government is coming under increasing pressure to stop supporting opt-outs in new EU legislation that would enable companies such as Shell to avoid having to publicly report these payments in certain circumstances.

BEIJING - The Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) has the potential to play a greater role in improving extractive company transparency and disclosure and build on its existing social responsibility and corporate governance measures, said Global Witness and Syntao in a new report published today.

LONDON – Today, Europe’s largest bank, HSBC, announced that it will pay $1.9 billion (£1.2 billion) to settle allegations that it laundered money for drugs cartels, terrorists and pariah states. During approximately the same period that HSBC failed to check whether the dollars it was shipping from Mexico to the US were drugs money, 47,000 people died at the hands of Mexican drugs traffickers.