Financial Transparency Coalition

I’ve just blogged a letter sent to the FT by some of the leaders of the UK’s financial services industry in which they say:

If the only question is, “Is it legal and profitable?”, then all that matters is that what is done complies with the regulations in force and makes a profit for the seller and the institution they represent. At its most extreme this philosophy undermines any concern for the best interests of the customer, and subordinates these entirely to the pure self-interest of the seller in maximising profit as...

A couple of weeks ago we wrote an article here entitled The hidden hands behind tax havens, where we noted that:

Secrecy jurisdictions are not merely an atomised grouping of mostly small states exercising their sovereign rights to set their own tax, secrecy and regulatory rules and laws as they please. Nearly all of the small states are, instead, substantially protected and controlled by larger powers, notably OECD countries, and of these the United Kingdom is by far the most important.

Now we have a new piece...

I spoke at the launch of a new report I have written last evening in Bergen, Norway. The report is entitled ‘Investments for Development: Derailed to Tax Havens’. The report focuses on the use of tax havens / secrecy jurisdictions as investment conduits by Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). They are state owned companies located in European companies that invest their capital in developing countries for the express purpose of advancing development in those places by promoting investment in local business. The best known in the UK is CDC plc, formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation. DFI activities can...

The report, entitled ‘Investments for Development: Derailed to Tax Havens: A report on the use of tax havens by Development Finance Institutions,’ looks at a critical area in the development activities of many European countries – the role of the Development Finance Institutions that they own in funding private sector investment in developing countries.