Financial Transparency Coalition

Last year, inspired by TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year, I picked ten individuals as nominees for a “Transparency Person of the Year.” Keeping with TIME’s definition, these would be people who influenced the news, for better or worse, on issues related to financial transparency. Keeping with the tradition, here are my picks for 2013. DAVID CAMERON. The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister has led a charge to change worldwide standards on beneficial ownership. In October of this year, the Prime Minister promised to make information on the beneficial ownership of companies available on public registries. Through these registries, the UK...

New index reveals UK runs biggest part of global secrecy network TJN’s 2013 Financial Secrecy Index exposes yawning gap between G20 rhetoric and reality Today the Tax Justice Network launches its 2013 Financial Secrecy Index, the biggest ever survey of global financial secrecy. This unique index combines a secrecy score with a weighting to create a ranking of the countries that most actively and aggressively promote secrecy in global finance. Click here for the Financial Secrecy Index. This new edition of the Financial Secrecy Index shows that the United Kingdom is the most important global player in the financial secrecy world. While the...

After a year of negotiations with Member States and the European Commission, and strong involvement by Eurodad and our partners, the European Parliament this week voted in favour of new accounting rules for extractive and logging sectors. The Accounting Directive will require companies in these two sectors to disclose their payments to governments in every country where they operate.

The US Conference of Catholic Bishops submitted a letter to the G8 Heads of State on Tuesday, urging them to fight poverty by addressing tax evasion and financial transparency. It reads, "The G8’s emphasis on transparency is critical. Human dignity demands truth, and democracy requires transparency. With more and better information, civil societies, including faith-based organizations, can hold their governments accountable and help insure that resources reduce poverty and improve the health of the whole society."