Financial Transparency Coalition

The News Corp. phone-hacking and bribery scandal has developed quickly, every day bringing more stories of investigations, arrests, or pie-wielding British comics.  It's easy to get overwhelmed by the tide of details and lose track of the big issues.  In the United States, the investigation has taken an interesting turn, casting a foul light on lobbying efforts to undermine American anti-bribery legislation. On July 15, the Department of Justice confirmed an investigation into the News Corp. scandal.  In addition to investigating up to 4,000 alleged incidents of phone hacking, it appears that News Corp. bribed British police officers....

China has had problems with bribery, corruption, and illicit financial flows for years. In fact illicit outflows from the People’s Republic of Chinahave ranged from an annual US$169 billion in 2000 to US$344 billion in 2008. The country is also, by far, the largest transmitter of illicit financial flows in the developing world. And in case it’s not already obvious, let me clarify that these numbers are unbelievably large. For a point of comparison, the PRC’s stock of total external debt in 2008 was $378 billion, just slightly greater than its total illicit outflows in that year alone. Corruption also...

WASHINGTON, DC – News that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. donated $1 million to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Chamber) months before the Chamber issued a proposal to relax elements of the nation’s flagship anti-corruption legislation, the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA), highlights the need to fully understand the ties between the Chamber and companies charged under the FCPA.

WASHINGTON, DC – One year out from passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act and three months after it was supposed to come into effect, a key anti-corruption and transparency measure—the Cardin-Lugar provision (Section 1504)—is still sitting on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) drafting board. The provision to require oil, gas, and mineral companies to disclose payments made to foreign governments is considered an historic move towards shedding light on the operations of a multi-billion dollar industry.