Financial Transparency Coalition

We often approach transparency laws from an anti-corruption, anti-tax evasion perspective here on the Task Force blog. But recent transparency regulations, like the recent oil, gas, and mining rules made active this month by the Securities and Exchange Commission, are also good for business. They will provide investors, creditors, and other financial actors with clear, verifiable, easily accessible data in which to make decisions. This will make markets more efficient, leading to better economic outcomes for all.

As The Guardian reports this morning:

More than a third of the subsidiaries owned by major energy and mining companies including Shell, BP and Glencore are based in “secrecy jurisdictions” where company accounts are not publicly available, according to a report. The study by Publish What You Pay Norway, which campaigns for transparent accounting among oil, gas and mining giants, claims that populations in resource-rich countries are losing out because they are unable to extract financial information from businesses operating on their soil or off their seaboards. “Extractive industry giants’ corporate ownership structures, their use of secrecy jurisdictions and the...