Financial Transparency Coalition

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...

Is this the end of the tax haven? The Telegraph, October 25, 2011 EU proposal helps curb corruption but fails to tackle tax dodging EURODAD, October 25, 2011 New UN report says criminals may have laundered $1.6 trillion in 2009 The UN News Centre, October 25, 2011 Exports to tax havens increased from 2004-05 level

Criminals, especially drug traffickers, may have laundered around $1.6 trillion, or 2.7 per cent of global GDP, in 2009, according to a new report by UNODC. This figure is consistent with the 2 to 5 per cent range previously established by the International Monetary Fund to estimate the scale of money-laundering. Less than 1 per cent of global illicit financial flows is currently being seized and frozen, according to the report Estimating illicit financial flows resulting from drug trafficking and other transnational organized crime. "Tracking the flows of illicit funds generated by drug trafficking and organized crime and analysing how...