Another day, another political party funding scandal. This time it's (again!) the UK, and its third largest party the Liberal Democrats. We will start with a quote. “Tax-haven lobbyists and beneficiaries have captured and corrupted our party political fundraising.” That's not us saying … [Read more...]
Enablers and intermediaries
City of London Corporation in ‘failure to support transparency’ shocker
Father William Taylor, an elected member of the City of London Corporation, has blogged an interesting exchange he had last week with Mark Boleat, who chairs the Corporation's Policy Committee. The crux of the exchange is that the Corporation will not be supporting the proposal before the UK … [Read more...]
Bankers have a moral compass, it just may not look like yours
Guest blog by Jörg Wiegratz, lecturer in political economy of global development, University of Leeds We’re getting rather used to revelations about sharp practice in the banking sector. The row about HSBC’s tax services to rich clients has raised, yet again, crucial questions about the business … [Read more...]
Quote of the day – accountants and austerity
Want to know why austerity is so popular among the political classes of so many countries? Well, there are many reasons, but here is one you may not have considered. From Prof. Prem Sikka, via email: "Accountants are trained to be class warriors and austerity is written into their psyche as they … [Read more...]
Whistleblowers – the new countercultural heroes
From Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone magazine: "This is the age of the whistleblower. From Chelsea Manning to Edward Snowden to the latest cloak-and-dagger lifter of files, ex-HSBC employee Hervé Falciani, whistleblowers are becoming to this decade what rock stars were to the Sixties — pop culture … [Read more...]
How the ‘competitiveness’ dogma made banks corrupt
We've come across an interview in The Atlantic with Stephen Platt, an expert on financial crime prevention, contained in an article entitled How Dirty Money Gets Into Banks. As much as anything, we've taken it as an excuse to reproduce this fabulous cartoon in Britain's Private Eye magazine, which … [Read more...]
Transparency International calls on UK to prosecute HSBC
The leading anti-corruption group Transparency International has called on authorities in the United Kingdom to launch a criminal investigation into HSBC in light of recent accusations against the bank. … [Read more...]
How to deal with the likes of HSBC
We're going to quote from an article in 2012 by Matt Taibbi, in Rolling Stone magazine, which was examining the latest HSBC mega-scandal of the time. He was outraged, as we all should be, at the lightness of the sentencing in a case that had involved shifting money for the massacre-happy Mexican … [Read more...]
We’d go to prison for this! Petition for tax justice
Please, everyone, sign this Avaaz petition: HSBC bank has just been caught red-handed helping some of the world's mega-rich dodge taxes! We'd go to prison for this, but governments are treating these powerful people like they're too big to jail. Let's show them they're not. … [Read more...]
HSBC, tax evasion and the link to lax financial regulation
Two quotes of the day, both from an article by Prof. Bill Black, a former U.S. bank regulator: "Taxes were once termed the price we paid for civilization, but they now represent the price the wealthy brag to each other about refusing to pay as they pillage civilization." Quite so. And then, … [Read more...]
Quote of the day – Swiss whitewash
From John Gapper in the Financial Times: “In the past, the Swiss private banking industry operated very differently to the way it does today,” HSBC said this week in its mea culpa. Perhaps so, but I recall Swiss banks claiming in the mid-1990s — a decade before this happened — that tax evasion was … [Read more...]
Drug cartels, terrorist financing risk and sanctioned regimes also on HSBC’s books under Lord Green
Press release from Global Witness Systemic failure to stop money laundering or comply with US laws shows need for sanctions for senior executives at big banks The HSBC tax scandal shows that UK law needs to be changed so that senior bankers are held criminally responsible when they oversee … [Read more...]
Tax transparency after #SwissLeaks
Cross-posted from Uncounted: Alex Cobham Yesterday I suggested some specific transparency measures to rebuild trust in light of #SwissLeaks. Today my colleagues at TJN pointed out that they are way ahead of me: here’s how. … [Read more...]
#SwissLeaks – Tax transparency for accountability
Cross-posted from Uncounted: Alex Cobham Much of the #SwissLeaks data has been in the hands of tax authorities for 5 years. Many of the questions raised relate to individuals and to particular regulators and governments – but there’s also a broader question that goes to the type of solutions … [Read more...]
Who runs this place? ‘Policy development’ and the Big 4
We just wrote a blog about tech giants, via a Financial Times article suggesting that they risk suffering reputational damage that could eventually be as bad as the reputational damage suffered by big banks. Well, there's another category that risks suffering the same fate in future. The Big … [Read more...]
