Two major reports are worth highlighting here. First, and most recently, from the U.S. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations (via Senator Carl Levin), a report on tax avoidance by U.S. multinational Caterpillar: "Caterpillar Inc., an American manufacturing icon, used a wholly owned Swiss … [Read more...]
Corruption
New campaign: End Anonymous Companies
Barclays: Behave!
Barclays bank has a long and not entirely honourable track record of involvement in Africa. … [Read more...]
Global Witness wins TED prize; Skoll awards
Global Witness, the indefatigable investigators of corruption, tax havens and general monkey business, have been awarded two prestigious awards. They note: … [Read more...]
The Offshore Wrapper: A week in tax justice
Our weekly Offshore Wrapper, by George Turner The end of decency For years the attitude towards Russia from major offshore financial centres such as the City of London has been: “Give us your money, we don’t care where it comes from.” … [Read more...]
London spin machine tries to rebut NYT “City betrays US” thesis
Following our widely read analysis on Russia, Ukraine, the City of London, and national security - here's another must-read article in the New York Times from the same author, Ben Judah, who wrote the original one we cited. … [Read more...]
Grace’s story: a schoolgirl and a corrupted world
From the Exposed Campaign: a powerful two-minute video, which speaks for itself. … [Read more...]
Ukraine: how to put pressure on Russia
Following our blog yesterday looking at the national security implications of Europe's tax haven mentality, we have been drawn to this post from 2008, looking at the West's options in dealing with Russian aggression in Georgia at the time. It lists several interesting possibilities, but we found … [Read more...]
Why Russia no longer fears the West. It’s the offshore, stupid
If there's one story you read today make it this one, from Politico Magazine. It's triggered by the crisis in Ukraine, but it's been a long time coming. The point of this short story is clear: Western leaders are waking up to the fact that Russia no longer fears or even respects them. Why? … [Read more...]
Anonymous UK company owned Viktor Yanukovych’s presidential palace compound
From Global Witness - see also Daily Mail and The Independent. Update: see also this important blog, looking at the national security implications of all this corruption. Anonymous UK company owned Viktor Yanukovych’s presidential palace compound 1 March 2014 The private residence of the … [Read more...]
Tax havens and corruption: Lebedev and TJN in the NYT
From Alexander Lebedev in the New York Times: "According to the Tax Justice Network, an independent group promoting efforts to curb tax avoidance, crooked business people, working with corrupt officials, have embezzled $30 trillion over the last 15 years — or half of the world’s annual gross … [Read more...]
Credit Suisse: industrial scale corruption in Switzerland
From The Guardian: "Senators Carl Levin and John McCain had harsh words for the Justice Department and the Swiss government, too, as they released a 178-page permanent subcommittee on investigation (PSI) report into offshore tax avoidance. … [Read more...]
Links Feb 6
Global version of FATCA could be a reality in a few years, say industry officials Thomson Reuters / Compliance Complete See also: No more delays for FATCA, says IRS STEP Greek-Swiss tax deal remains elusive Reuters Is Switzerland retreating on Rubik? … [Read more...]
Flipping the corruption myth
TJN has previously challenged the prevailing discourse on corruption; and we have taken particular issue with Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which looks at corruption through a highly distorted prism. … [Read more...]
Guinea: A slow death facilitated by lawyers, accountants and financial advisers
The Guardian has posted a comment from Guinean President, Alpha Condé, currently in Davos at the 2014 World Economic Forum. He gets straight to business in his first paragraph: "As president of Guinea I know we can't tackle this problem alone – corruption is embedded in the western institutions … [Read more...]
