Global Financial Integrity

Trade Integrity, defined as “international trade that is legally sourced, properly priced and delivered transparently,” is meant to be a goal for all countries as well as a global norm to help support economic development, especially among countries that struggle to provide a robust social safety net. Opacity in valuation information – there is no international requirement to exchange this data between countries – provides an opportunity for unscrupulous importers and exporters to misinvoice goods because in most cases customs officials do not have a good basis for value comparison. Similarly, opacity in vessel ownership facilitates illicit trade of all kinds with often few ramifications for those owners. Given these clusters of opacity, the entire trade ecosystem – the goods, the pricing and the delivery – should be under scrutiny by the international community. ‘Blockchain in Every Port’ . . . could raise tens of billions of dollars in revenue for developing countries each year. A public, Global BO Registry for Commercial Vessels is simply a transparency tool to assist law enforcement in their efforts to disrupt, interdict and prosecute bad actors who misuse vessels for nefarious purposes.