Financial Transparency Coalition

Read of the Week: The Uphill Battle Against Money Laundering The Council on Foreign Relations Blog, October 28, 2011 SC to hear plea for recovery of looted wealth today Dawn.com, October 31, 2011 The Corruption Trap INSEAD Knowledge, October 24, 2011 100Reporters Launches — Groundbreaking New News Organization with Focus on Exposing Corruption in Governments,

Corruption thrives on secrecy, when undisturbed by public access to information about government and business activities. Countering it requires public participation and transparency in anti-corruption efforts and in governance. This is recognised in the UN Convention against Corruption in Article 13 on civil society participation and access to information and in other UNCAC provisions. Additionally, Article 19 and other provisions of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, provide for a right to freedom of expression and to access to information held by public bodies and calls on states of their own accord to put information of public interest...

The time has come to act. Beyond shedding light on the devastating impact of grand corruption, the Arab spring has revealed major anti-money laundering deficiencies, and the huge difficulties of getting the money back even after the dictator has been pushed from power. Corrupt money transferred out of developing and transitional economies is conservatively estimated at US$20 to US$40 billion per year. Hundreds of billions in much needed funds for development have already been taken over the last few decades. While recovery of stolen funds could greatly contribute to development in those countries, prevention of such outflows through greater financial...

In July 2010, the U.S. Congress passed Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Act, a measure requiring companies registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to publicly report how much they pay governments for access to oil, gas and minerals, country-by-country and project-by-project. The SEC is developing final rules to put the disclosure requirement into effect. In October 2011, the European Commission issued draft directives requiring companies listed on EU stock exchanges and large private companies based in member states to disclose their payments to governments for oil, gas, minerals and timber, country-by-country and per project. After developing a final...