Financial Transparency Coalition

Contact:
Monique Danziger, 202-293-0740

March 17, 2009, Washington, D.C.— The Government of Denmark  is the newest member to join the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) announced today.

“GFI is delighted to welcome the government of Norway on board at this momentous and high-stakes time in global finance and development,” said GFI director Raymond Baker.  “We look forward to working with Mrs. Jette Egelund, the Danish Minister Counselor and government representative to the Task Force.  Mrs. Egelund has extensive experience working with multilateral affairs and is for the moment also representing Denmark in the Paris Club.”

Launched in January 2009, the Task Force is led by GFI and is a unique global coalition of civil society organizations and more than 50 governments which advocates for greatly improved transparency and accountability in the global financial system.  The government of Denmark will join Task Force members such as Tax Justice Network, Global Witness and Transparency International as well as representatives from the governments of Norway, Chile, France, Germany and Spain.

The Task Force advocates five priorities in addressing the current global financial crisis, each one focusing on transparency and extending initiatives that have already begun to be put into place:

Curtailment of mispricing in trade imports and exports;
Country-by-country accounting of sales, profits, and taxes paid by multinational corporations;
Confirmation of beneficial ownership in all banking and securities accounts;
Automatic cross-border exchange of tax information on personal and business accounts;
Harmonization of predicate offenses under anti-money laundering laws across all Financial.

Visit  www.gfip.org  for more information about the Task force including the Task Force publication “Economic Transparency: Curtailing the Shadow Financial System” and a list of the full Task Force membership.