Financial Transparency Coalition

Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister of Italy was sentenced on 26 October to 4 years in prison for fraud but because of Italy’s laws limiting the length of trials, he is unlikely to serve any time. Headlines around the world read “Berlusconi gets four year jail sentence.” But Berlusconi is unlikely to see the inside of a cell following his conviction for fraud, not because an appeal will overturn the case but because the case will be closed under Italy’s short statute of limitation laws.

Global Financial Integrity's new report, Illicit Financial Flows from China and the Role of Trade Misinvoicing, was released yesterday. It found that China lost $3.79 trillion--an astonishingly high number--between 2000 and 2011 to illicit financial flows. In just 2011, China lost almost $600 billion. These outflows are the proceeds of crime, corruption, and tax evasion, and threaten Chinese social stability. The report first debuted exclusively in this week's issue of The Economist.

Transparency International today launched Keeping REDD+ clean – a step-by-step guide to guarding REDD+ against corruption, before it sets in. Many of the world’s most densely forested countries have a poor track record for corruption. Politicians have been known to accept bribes – sometimes huge – to grant companies access to forest zones that should be protected.

In late 1975 a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into Lockheed Corporation revealed that the aircraft manufacturer had paid at least $22 million in bribes to foreign government officials and political organizations. At the time, this was not illegal and it resulted in a scandal, investigation, and a revelation that hundreds of other businesses were routinely involved in this practice. In response to the Lockheed scandal, Congress enacted the Foreign Corrupt Practice Act (FCPA) in an effort to “bring a halt to the bribery of foreign officials and to restore public confidence in the integrity of the American business...