By Tom Cardamone, October 6, 2015
A Quarterly Newsletter on the Work of Global Financial Integrity from June to September 2015
Global Financial Integrity is pleased to present
GFI Engages, a quarterly newsletter created to highlight events at GFI and in the world of illicit financial flows. We look forward to keeping you updated on our research, advocacy, high level engagement, and media presence. The following items represent just a fraction of what GFI has been up to since March, so make sure to check our
website for frequent updates.
Global Financial Integrity Conference: Illicit Financial Flows: The Most Damaging Economic Problem Facing the Developing World
Based on the culmination of work GFI has done with the support of the Ford Foundation including a book by GFI, the conference included discussions and keynote remarks from experts on the nature of IFFs, country-level perspectives, and how and why curtailing these IFFs should be a priority for the global community.
By Christine Clough, PMP, September 1, 2015
Flight Capital and Illicit Financial Flows to and from Myanmar: 1960-2013
Please join Global Financial Integrity (GFI) for a panel discussion on Thursday, September 10 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. Based on a forthcoming report by GFI, the panel will discuss the dynamics of illicit financial flows (IFFs) and economic opacity in Myanmar since 1960, and the economic ramifications these trends have had and continue to have on the country’s development.
The panel will include:
Dev Kar
Chief Economist
Global Financial Integrity
Vikram Nehru
Senior Associate, Asia Program
Bakrie Chair in Southeast Asia Studies
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Aaretti Siitonen
First Secretary
Embassy of Finland
And will be moderated by:
Tom Cardamone
Managing Director
Global Financial Integrity
By Sophie Haggerty, August 6, 2015
Academics Stand Against Poverty, the Yale Global Justice Program, and Global Financial Integrity invite submissions of original essays of ca. 7,000 to 9,000 words on the intelligent use of incentives toward curtailing corporations’ use of tax evasion and avoidance, abusive transfer pricing and all forms of illicit financial flows. All prizes are named in honor of Amartya Sen, whose work has shown how the rigor of economic thinking can be brought to bear on normative and practical questions of great human significance. For more details, please see the contest web page.
By Heather Lowe, August 6, 2015
We have the financial transparency ideas, now we need the right open data standards to go with them!
As a member of the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC), Global Financial Integrity is seeking proposals from experts in the area of data standards for a consultant to produce a scoping study that identifies the range of open data standards that might accompany the FTC’s transparency platform and an assessment of the related political challenges and opportunities.
Deadline for applications is August 21 ! Please see the Request for Proposals (RFP) for complete information.
By Heather Lowe, July 22, 2015
Law Firm Focuses Attention on Practice Illicitly Draining Over US$700 Billion per Year from Developing and Emerging Economies
While much of GFI’s focus is on improving the capacities of customs departments, it is unfortunately rare for us to find American law firms writing articles on customs issues applicable to our work. Attorneys at the global law firm of White & Case have recently published one worth reading, however.
The authors are noting the increase of U.S. enforcement in the customs area, and most of the cases cited involve trade misinvoicing/fraud, a practice which accounts for about 80 percent of GFI’s illicit financial flows estimates—illegally draining US$730 billion from developing and emerging economies in 2012.
By Tom Cardamone, July 2, 2015
A Quarterly Newsletter on the Work of Global Financial Integrity from April to June 2015
Global Financial Integrity is pleased to present
GFI Engages, a quarterly newsletter created to highlight events at GFI and in the world of illicit financial flows. We look forward to keeping you updated on our research, advocacy, high level engagement, and media presence. The following items represent just a fraction of what GFI has been up to since March, so make sure to check our
website for frequent updates.
Joint Conference in Johannesburg: Financial Transparency and Human Rights in Africa
The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), Global Financial Integrity (GFI), and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute (IBAHRI) partnered to host a three-day conference in Johannesburg, South Africa fromMay 18-20. The conference featured special expert-level discussion on the connection between human rights and illicit financial flows in Africa and the legal, advocacy, and academic channels for leveraging these connections to effect change.
Panelists and keynote speakers were drawn from around Sub-Saharan Africa and across the globe, covering a broad range of topics within the financial transparency-human rights overlap, including natural resources, violent conflicts, long-term development consequences, and the ongoing Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) process.
By Sophie Haggerty, June 15, 2015
Other Countries Should Follow Norway’s Example
On June 5, the Norwegian Parliament unanimously voted to establish a public registry of corporate ownership information, becoming the latest country to tackle the abuse of anonymous companies through increased transparency.
Anonymous companies are one of the top tools used by criminals, kleptocrats, tax evaders, and terrorists to launder dirty money with impunity. Requiring companies to publicly disclose in a central registry their ultimate, human, beneficial owner(s) is regarded as the gold standard in tackling the abuse of these phantom firms.
Norway’s strong endorsement of transparency comes as no big surprise: the Scandinavian country routinely ranks near the top of transparency and anti-corruption rankings, and Norway was the first country to get behind the push to curb illicit financial flows. Their support on this topic dates back to the formation of the Norwegian Government-led Task Force on the Development Impact of Illicit Financial Flows in 2007 and their financial backing of the Financial Transparency Coalition at its inception in early 2009–long before illicit flows topped the global agenda.
In establishing a public registry, Norway joins Denmark and the United Kingdom—the first country to commit to a public registry of beneficial ownership information back in October 2013. The UK followed through with its commitment this March by passing historic legislation needed to fulfill its pledge.
By Tom Cardamone, June 4, 2015
Illicit Financial Flows Have a Devastating Impact on the Poorest Countries in the World
What do you do when “the big number,” used to estimate the global volume of illicit financial flows (IFFs), begins to lose its luster?
Over the past year or so, GFI has begun to hear—in various venues and by various people—the warning to audiences that they shouldn’t “focus on the big number.” A trillion dollars is a global number, these observers say, and can’t be used to assess the impact at the country level. Or, they contend, the trillion dollars in IFFs is from a cluster of emerging market countries and therefore is skewed to make it look as though all developing countries have huge problems when really only a few do. GFI decided to go back to the data to see if the criticisms were accurate.
As a result, this week we are publishing “Illicit Financial Flows and Development Indices: 2008–2012,” a study that looks at illicit flows from the poorest countries to determine the development impact in those places that do not appear on the top-10 list of IFF-source nations by gross volume. Rather than focus on the Chinas and Russias and Mexicos of the world, we examined IFFs in nations that appear, for example, on the Least Developed Countries list or the Highly Indebted Poor Countries list—82 countries in all were examined. What we found was simply alarming.
