Financial Transparency Coalition

On September 9th the Cayman Islands introduced a bill for the establishment of new Special Economic Zones. The most Alice-in-Wonderland part of the bill is this bit, on page 14:

"A special economic zone shall be deemed to be outside of the Islands and not in the Islands."

Emphasis added. So where will this zone be? It seems that it will, for the relevant purposes, effectively be 'elsewhere' - which, in practical terms, means 'nowhere.' This 'it's elsewhere, don't-blame-us, we-can't-regulate-this' approach is what a lot of the activity of secrecy jurisdictions is designed to do - it's not so common,...

On September 7th, 1822 Prince Pedro, the Portuguese Prince of Brazil who represented the monarchy in the Brazilian colony, received a letter. It was from the Princess Maria Leopoldina, his wife, and it advised him to give the county its independence after nearly two years of rebellion. Prince Pedro heeded his wife’s advice . Later that day, standing on the shores of theIpirangaRiver in Sao Paolo, Pedro declared Brazil’s independence, ending 322 years of colonial rule. According to legend (and artistic recreations of the event) a very refined looking Pedro, dressed in a military suit, brandishing a...

Corruption costs China’s economy a pretty penny. A report from China’s own central bank estimates that “up to 18,000 corrupt officials and employees of state-owned enterprises” have absconded with 800 billion yuan, or $123 billion, of state money since the 1990s. In a recent speech given to celebrate China’s Communist Party’s nineteenth anniversary, President Hu Jintao specifically addressed the importance of “rampant corruption” and the impetus to create a “clean government.” And Minxin Pei, a former scholar for the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, estimates that China’s government loses as much as 10% of government spending in kickbacks and corruption,...

Eurodad's Alex Marriage Details How a Robust Country-by-Country Reporting Standard Should Look The European Commission will make a proposal for introducing country-by-country reporting (CBC) for extractives industries and possibly forestry companies at some point this autumn. This comes following an EU Council request earlier in 2011 that called upon

“the Commission to come forward with initiatives on the disclosure of financial information by companies working in the extractive industry, including the possible adoption of a country-by-country reporting requirement, International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) for the extractive industry, and the monitoring of third-country legislation.”

This will then be submitted to...