Financial Transparency Coalition

A taxing lesson from Britain Live Mint, May 3, 2011 Russia Criminalizes Foreign Bribery Wall Street Journal (Corruption Currents), May 5, 2011 Avon Probe Expands To Countries Beyond China Wall Street Journal (Corruption Currents), May 5, 2011 Sweeping Reform Attempt Could Shake Up Nigeria’s Oil Industry Stratfor, May 4, 2011 $2.2T Foreign Assets Zawya, May 5, 2011 African tax forum targets dodgers Business Day (South Africa), May 5, 2011

Recently we wrote a blog, entitled "Jeffrey Sachs joins the tax justice movement, sort of," after he wrote some superb (but incomplete) things in the Financial Times about the race to the bottom on corporate tax. Well, now he has a new piece on Project Syndicate, to which we have already briefly linked, but which is worth expanding on. It's entitled The Global Economy’s Corporate Crime Wave, and it's excellent, all the way through. We are particularly excited by this section:

"We will need to light the dark corners of international finance, especially tax havens like the Cayman Islands and...

Q+A-SEC rules on resource sector face delays Reuters, May 3, 2011 Bin Laden Left Legacy Of Stronger Controls On Terrorist Finance Wall Street Journal (Corruption Currents), May 3, 2011 Continued vigilance seen needed on al Qaeda money flows Reuters, May 4, 2011 U.S. Treasury nears Iran sanctions on foreign banks Sabah, May 4, 2011 OECD releases latest reports on tax exchanges Investment International, May 4, 2011 UK and Switzerland edge closer to tax evasion solution The Telegraph (UK), May 3, 2011

In Treasure Islands I briefly mention Sir John Cowperthwaite, Hong Kong's Financial Sectetary from 1961-1971, who had such stridently anti-government views that he banned the publication of official statistics because they would, he said, attract too much attention from civil servants. Such is the anti-government, anti-society worldview that I have so often encountered offshore. I also quote Jack Blum, a top US criminal investigator, who described Hong Kong as an "anything-goes, no-regulation world . . corporations doing business in China set up Hong Kong companies with secret shareholdings . . today Hong Kong is where most of the corruption in...