Financial Transparency Coalition

When most people think of the Netherlands, what may first come to mind are charming canal-side towns filled with people riding bicycles amid tulip fields and windmills. But the Netherlands is much more than windmills and tulips.

LONDON - As the scandal grows around a Nigerian oil deal involving Shell and Italian firm Eni who made a US$1.1 billion payment that ended up in the accounts of a company controlled by a corrupt former Nigerian Oil Minister, the Dutch government is coming under increasing pressure to stop supporting opt-outs in new EU legislation that would enable companies such as Shell to avoid having to publicly report these payments in certain circumstances.

Today we would like to highlight two recent blogs from two of Eurodad members, which discuss some positive developments in the tax transparency arena. Firstly, following Action Aid’s recent report on SABMiller and its abusive transfer pricing practices in developing countries, several tax authorities in Africa are conducting further investigations on the company’s operations. “African tax authorities have not only acknowledged the impact of ActionAid’s recent report highlighting tax avoidance by the global brewing company SABMiller, but also committed to doing something new in response to it. Meeting last week to discuss our report under the auspices of the African...

“Coffee shops” are causing trouble and increasing crime rates in small Dutch towns that border neighboring countries. To some degree it’s drug tourism, visitors coming from other countries to engage in infamous Dutch, legal pastimes. However, these “coffee shops” that sell drugs are also facilitating the expansion of organized crime and of the underground economies both in the Netherlands and in neighboring states. As the underground economy grows, the government’s ability to govern slowly erodes, and the bigger fish become harder to track and catch. While drug tourism is a small problem compared to, for example, a corrupt African official...