Financial Transparency Coalition

This year's International Anti-Corruption Day is marred by a U.S. Chamber of Commerce attempt to weaken the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), our nation's flagship anti-corruption legislation. Passed in 1977, the FCPA was a response to eroded public trust in government following the Watergate scandal and the admission by Lockheed and some 400 other American companies that bribery to foreign officials was a commonplace practice in international commerce. The U.S. FCPA stood virtually alone on the global stage in the fight against corruption until the late 1990s, when other...

WASHINGTON, DC – Nearly 250 prosecutors, civil society representatives and other officials gathered in Washington, DC this week for a World Bank-hosted meeting of the International Corruption Hunters Alliance. Speakers at the three-day event included World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick, United States Senator Patrick Leahy, Transparency International Chair Huguette Labelle, EU MP Eva Joly, ICC Prosecutor General Luis M. Ocampo, Fridtjov Thorkildsen of Norad, and dozens of other notable corruption fighters. Overall the event was a good opportunity to hear what effort the Bank is making to curb bribery, to better understand initiatives underway in...

Before the end of the week, former United States Vice President Dick Cheney will be indicted by Nigerian officials in connection with the long-running bribery investigation into Halliburton Company. According to Bloomberg News:

Indictments will be lodged in a Nigerian court “in the next three days,” Godwin Obla, prosecuting counsel at the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, said in an interview today at his office in Abuja, the capital. An arrest warrant for Cheney “will be issued and transmitted through Interpol,” the world’s biggest international police organization, he said.

Furthermore:

The biggest sport in the world is football. Soccer, that is. Unfortunately, it also offers a paradigmatic example of the poisonous effects of a lack of financial integrity. There are a great many people with a stake in the outcomes of football – for example, the World Cup held in South Africa earlier this year has verified viewing figures of 715 million women, men and children (around one in ten of the world’s population), having been broadcast in 214 countries. The sport’s world governing body FIFA estimate there were 26 billion World Cup match viewings – enough for each...