Financial Transparency Coalition

Check out the new press release from the Task Force regarding the global push for legislation to require financial transparency in all companies. The release outlines a letter from over a thousand organizations calling on the EU Commission to require beneficial ownership be disclosed or all EU companies, as well as a similar letter that was sent to U.S. legislators by a different group of organizations.

Senator John Kerry and the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations conducted a hearing yesterday regarding the challenges of illegal ivory trafficking from Africa. While the topic may seem less urgent in times when widespread unemployment, poverty and global economic crisis receive the bulk of officials' attention, Senator Kerry believes that “we never have the right to turn our backs on the values that define us.” Poaching for the purpose of selling illicit ivory is a travesty, and responsible for the deaths of countless elephants every year:

A group of 41 businesses and nonprofits sent a letter to every member of Congress pressing them to pass legislation that would reveal the beneficial owners of shell companies.

WASHINGTON, DC – Today, 41 business and civil society groups sent a letter to every member of the U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate urging them to co-sponsor the Incorporation Transparency and Law Enforcement Assistance Act (S. 1483/ H.R. 3416). This bipartisan bill, which is endorsed by the Obama Administration, would require companies to disclose their ultimate owners at the time of incorporation, making it much harder for corrupt politicians, tax dodgers, terrorists and other criminals to form and hide behind anonymous U.S. shell companies.