Financial Transparency Coalition

WASHINGTON DC—Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington DC-based research and advocacy organization, urged the Securities and Exchange Commission today to deny the suspension request made by the American Petroleum Institute for recently finalized rules implementing Dodd-Frank Section 1504 transparency requirements for oil, gas, and mining companies.

LONDON - Global Witness is outraged by a lawsuit filed by the American Petroleum Institute (API), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and others to gut Section 1504, an important anti-corruption provision of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. (1) By seeking to nullify this provision, API, whose members include British Petroleum, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell, and other industry groups are demonstrating that they have something to hide. Any claims by API that they support transparency efforts are preposterous when they are not only trying to weaken the rules but to strike Section 1504 in its...

The resource curse has long been a problem for Africa. The continent’s economies have remained stagnant and hollow for nearly 60 years while a succession of autocrats and their clients have become fabulously wealthy. With huge natural gas discoveries off of the Mozambican coast, vast newfound oil reserves in the Great Lakes region and more than $1 trillion worth of minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there is vast potential for another wasted generation.

In May, the Italian energy plant Eni discovered around ten trillion cubic feet of natural gas off the shore of Mozambique, increasing the estimated reserves of Mozambican gas above 50 trillion cubic feet. This discovery placed the East African nation in the spotlight of economic development and energy production. On the other hand, Mozambique’s new intra-regional competition with Kenya and Tanzania, investment by Europeans, and lack of solid economic foundations create the possibility of corruption. Therefore, as the country enjoys a boost to its GDP, only an effective, transparent control of finances will ensure a parallel benefit to its...