Financial Transparency Coalition

CANNES / WASHINGTON – Global Financial Integrity (GFI) today joined over 40,000 people from around the world calling on G20 leaders to end tax haven secrecy when they meet this week in Cannes, France.

WASHINGTON, DC - Three years after the near collapse of the international banking system and as it faces new instability, the governments of the Group of 20 leading economic powers (G20) must focus on the underlying, systemic causes of the current financial crisis. A first step should be the enforcement of measures to ensure financial transparency.

Mountaintops provide a convenient symbol for anything from achievement to power. So it doesn’t come as a surprise that the meeting of the world’s twenty most powerful leaders is called the G20 “summit.” Actually, the copycat nomenclature runs far deeper. For instance: the diplomats who lay the groundwork for the G20 leaders’ trip to the summit? They’re dubbed “Sherpa,” with a dash of self-aware irony, after the Nepalese guides who help mountaineers scale peaks inNepal. And with what may be a move to thrash the symbol to death, the G20 Sherpa’s aides are called “yaks.” It...

WASHINGTON, DC – In reaction to the recently released communiqué from the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting in Paris last week, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) voiced disappointment and urged the G20 to move beyond “piecemeal regulations” and adopt comprehensive reforms to create greater transparency and accountability in the world’s financial system.