Financial Transparency Coalition

BERLIN—On Friday and Saturday this week (October 22d-23th), the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank governors are due to meet in South Korea. The G20 had raised big expectations at a time when it promised the end of bank secrecy (London, April 2009). At that time, capital markets were reaching their lowest point over several years. Since then, they have partially recovered and the G20 tone has considerably softened. Would we have a correlation between Dow Jones levels and G20 softness? Without going that far, we can only reaffirm that transparency and the fight against corruption still have...

Conclusions of the OECD Meeting of the Council at Ministerial Level, 27-28 May 2010

A statement released by Mars Group Kenya, a Kenyan anti-corruption organization, this past week clearly shows an awareness and distaste for the role played by international financial organizations in financing corrupt regimes, as well as an appreciation for recent U.S. action to pressure Kenyan politicians to push for government reform. Pressure from the U.S. came last week in the form of 15 letters from the U.S. government to top Kenyan officials, “warning them of possible travel bans if they did not cooperate in instituting reforms.” While many government officials have come out decisively against the actions...

LONDON (Reuters) - The financial crisis will widen the gulf between countries in governance and corruption, a leading expert says, with some states hastening reforms but others using economic distress to justify doing nothing.