Financial Transparency Coalition

Fittingly on International Anti-Corruption Day, more than 40 investigative journalists from all over the world signed a letter urging Jean Claude Juncker, President of the European Commission, and other legislators to finish what the European Parliament started in March: the creation of public registers of company ownership information. The proposed reform, currently being debated under a new anti-money laundering directive, would create registers to collect information on the real, human owner behind every company operating in the EU. Right now, it's all too easy to set up an anonymous company and use it for money laundering,...

Last week, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) announced that it had received troves of data on a number of wealthy UK individuals that held money in an offshore bank in the Channel Isles, a British crown dependency and well known tax haven. The ICIJ, along with The Guardian newspaper, dissected the documents, and released a number of stories outlining some of their findings. One of the more interesting tax arrangements uncovered seems to be that of the owners of Nando's, the worldwide restaurant chain famous for its chicken dishes.

The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and The Guardian have received troves of documents exposing the offshore banking activities of thousands of wealthy individuals. The information, which was leaked to the ICIJ, highlights the activities of a major private bank in the Channel Islands, a British crown dependency. According to ICIJ, the list of clients includes "donors to the British government, which has been outspoken against tax havens, and some of the most prominent people in British life."

Greetings from Dar es Salaam! We’re still half a day away from the beginning the 2013 FTC Conference main program, and we’ve already seen a number of exciting developments. One big development: Semkae Kilonzo, Coordinator for Policy Forum, our partners for the conference in Dar, had a great blog post published at The Guardian this