Financial Transparency Coalition

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has just published a new chapter in its on-going "Offshore Leaks" investigative series, this time focusing on the close relatives of China’s top leaders who have held secretive entities in offshore tax havens usually associated with hidden wealth. Among the investigation’s key allegations: •Relatives of at least five current or former members of China's Politburo Standing Committee – President Xi Jinping, former premiers Wen Jiabao and Li Peng, former President Hu Jintao and former leader Deng Xiaoping – have held companies in the Cook Islands or British Virgin Islands, the records obtained by ICIJ show. •PricewaterhouseCoopers,...

Jana Morgan, National Coordinator of Publish What You Pay US, shares an exciting list of successes in country-by-country reporting for extractives industries during the year 2013: 2013 - A PWYP Year in Review Thanks to all the Publish What You Pay coalition members around the world who helped us come so far so quickly! Section 1504 rules catalyze momentum around the world! •The European Union amended its Accounting and Transparency Directives in line with August 2012 rules. They go even further by including large EU-registered companies, as well as logging companies. •Countries such as Sweden, Denmark and Finland agree to quick transposition of the...

Reporting & Investigating Illicit Finance, Financial Secrecy & Asset Recovery Journalism Training: 8-11 April 2014 With the Centre of Investigative Journalism, London, UK. (Deadline for applications is January 30) Tax Justice Network’s Illicit Finance Journalism Programme is aimed at practicing journalists and campaigners who are keen to investigate tax avoidance, corruption, money laundering and asset recovery. Over four days, you will gain an understanding of how the secret world of offshore finance works as well as how to investigate corporate accounts and corporate corruption. We will show you where to find documents, how to analyse them and other practical tools to help uncover financial...

Victor Yanukovych lives on 340 acres of land on the banks of the river Dnieper in Ukraine. His home, a five story mansion named Mezhyhiriya, is decorated with marble, crystal, and precious woods. It is difficult to overstate the luxury of this palatial building. Its cedar doors are worth $64,000 each, the wall paneling in