Financial Transparency Coalition

Foreign bribery in Russiais a huge problem for the country’s economy. Investors are threatening to flee in droves in the face of ever increasing official depravity and the tightening of domestic laws on bribery abroad. Transparency International estimates that the total annual amount paid in bribes inRussia is worth $300 billion—equivalent to the GDP of Denmark. Global Financial Integrity estimates that the country lost an average $47 billion in illicit financial flows per year, a number which money transferred abroad stemming from tax evasion, corruption, and trade mispricing. Corruption has become an endemic characteristic of Russia’s public sector....

WASHINGTON, DC – Corruption, kickbacks and bribery are on the rise in Ethiopia, according to a forthcoming report from Global Financial Integrity, a Washington-based research and advocacy organization. According to the study, illicit financial flows out of the African nation nearly doubled to US$3.26 Billion in 2009 over the previous year, with corruption, kickbacks and bribery accounting for the vast majority of that increase.

Law enforcement must be able to impose appropriate penalties when companies bribe officials to win contracts or gain undue advantages. But calculating and confiscating the proceeds of this crime is difficult. To help governments meet this challenge, the OECD and the World Bank/UNODC Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative (StAR) released today a new study on the Identification and Quantification of the Proceeds of Bribery. “Countries’ ability to seize and confiscate the gains from bribery is integral to the international fight against bribery and corruption, ” said Mark Pieth, Chair of the OECD Working Group on Bribery, made up of representatives from...

On Monday, October 10, a variety of prominent Indian business leaders under the larger title of India Inc released their second open letter to the Indian government. This letter argues for the need to make striking changes to India’s legislation regarding bribery and corruption. It was written with an eye toward a newly proposed law called the Lokpal Bill which has been discussed extensively over the past year and is expected to be formally presented before India’s parliament in the near future. This bill intends to fight corruption by creating an ombudsman-style body with the power...