Financial Transparency Coalition

Eduardo Bohorquez and Deniz Devrim of Transparencia Mexicana, our national chapter in Mexico, recently published an article arguing for the abolishment of the word “petty” in the term “petty bribery”. They point out that petty bribery in fact generates substantial costs to society, both monetary and non-monetary. For example, surveys find that in Mexico households with the minimum income spend 33 per cent of their monthly income on bribes.

In April, The New York Times published the revealing story about Wal-Mart’s alleged bribery activity involving its largest subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico. Now, nearly a month and a half since the article was published in the NY Times, many shareholders of Wal-Mart have displayed dissatisfaction. In a shareholders meeting on Friday, June 1, in Fayetteville, Arkansas, a vote for the Wal-Mart Board of Directors illustrated the rising disapproval of Wal-Mart’s actions.

In April, 31 South Koreans, including 18 professional baseball players, were indicted for sports gambling and match-fixing. Operating both online and on the field, where players deliberately made mistakes to throw matches, these athletes and “brokers,” members of criminal gangs, earned as much as $4,000 per game. This type of activity is not new to South Korea, as volleyball and soccer leagues faced similar instances earlier this year. However, the recent corruption of baseball, Korea’s national pastime, particularly reflects a larger South Korean problem.

While the year-long allegations of misconduct against the Alstom Group (ALO) have led to some significant consequences for the company – US$9.5 million worth of them – a lot of questions about what happened remain. At the end of February, the World Bank decided to debar two Alstom subsidiaries for three years and agreed on a Negotiated Resolution Agreement worth US$9.5 million in restitution payments with respect to its conduct in Zambia. However, because of the nature of the settlement, the company has not had to publicly disclose the nature and scope of the alleged activities. There is currently a...