Financial Transparency Coalition

UK companies with hidden owners lie behind some of the worst problems of our time. Amongst other things they  been used to breach UN sanctions, evade taxes and rip off ordinary citizens. That’s why Global Witness has been calling for an end to these getaway cars for crime and corruption for years (see this TED-Ed animation for

After resigning from Panama’s official effort to clean up its financial sector, Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and transparency expert Mark Pieth have come out with their own independent report. And it’s a good one.

In case you were distracted by other world events on Tuesday night, I appeared on Radio 4’s File on 4to talk about the problem of dirty money and dodgy people finding their way into the UK.  If you missed it, you can listen here, and it’s playing again on Sunday at 5pm.

The U.S. government has long recognized that it does not have enough information on the identities of its contractors – those that help protect our national security, provide medical and educational services, and build infrastructure.   “here is no database in the U.S. government” that provides reliable subcontractor information. -Ray DiNunzio, Special Investigator General for Afghanistan