Financial Transparency Coalition

Cross posted from Transparency International’s Space for Transparency Blog. After a summer of corruption scandals in Spanish politics, the country’s Congress passed a new piece of legislation on transparency and access to information this September. Public tolerance for corruption had reached boiling point with companies, parties and even the royal family seemingly acting with impunity after graft allegations. The new legislation is now headed for the Senate, where it will be debated before coming into effect.

Most European Union countries fail to legally protect whistleblowers enough from retaliation in the workplace, shutting out an important actor in the fight against corruption, according to a new report from Transparency International. Whistleblowers play a prominent role exposing and preventing corruption, yet only four EU countries – Luxembourg, Romania, Slovenia and the United Kingdom – have advanced whistleblower protection laws in place, according to the report Whistleblowing in Europe. Only in these four countries would a government or company employee who discloses serious wrongdoing be adequately protected by law from being fired or harassed. Of the remaining 23 EU countries...

With all of the talk last week in the transparency community of David Cameron’s historic announcement regarding beneficial ownership, little mention was made of the US Government’s draft set of commitments to the Open Government Partnership (OGP). Porter McConnell, Manager of the Financial Transparency Coalition, was asked by OpentheGovernment.org to provide her views, which have now been published alongside those of other civil society leaders.

Check out this great BBC broadcast covering David Cameron's groundbreaking commitment to introduce a public register to reveal the true beneficial owner of companies. Global Financial Integrity's E.J. Fagan was interviewed for this broadcast. You can find his comments starting at the 3.20 mark.