Financial Transparency Coalition

MEP Accepted Award at Gala Dinner in Washington, DC WASHINGTON, DC — Friday evening, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) presented its 2010 award for Exemplary Leadership to European Parliament Member Eva Joly in honor of her tireless work against corruption and fraud. Ms. Joly accepted the award at a gala dinner held in her honor at a private club Friday evening, December 10, 2010 in Washington, DC. “Ms. Joly’s career is distinguished and defined by her work against corruption,” said...

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...

Yesterday afternoon I got a phone call from a private banking insider – somebody who knows the industry intimately – who had objected to some things we have blogged recently. One was yesterday's Bahamas blog; the other was a blog last month entitled Brazil gets tough on global pirate bankers. That picked up a Bloomberg story looking at the arrest of a Brazilian private banker, Alexandre Caiado, who got arrested for apparently selling tax evasion services, and who seemed mystified as to why he had been targeted. Our blog expressed approval that...