While the year-long allegations of misconduct against the Alstom Group (ALO) have led to some significant consequences for the company – US$9.5 million worth of them – a lot of questions about what happened remain.
At the end of February, the World Bank decided to debar two Alstom subsidiaries for three years and agreed on a Negotiated Resolution Agreement worth US$9.5 million in restitution payments with respect to its conduct in Zambia. However, because of the nature of the settlement, the company has not had to publicly disclose the nature and scope of the alleged activities. There is currently a campaign in Zambia for the local anti-corruption commission to investigate and release the name(s) of the person(s) involved.
Over the weekend, the New York Times alleged that Wal-Mart deliberately hid investigations into bribery practices at the company’s largest foreign subsidiary, Wal-Mart de Mexico. Wal-Mart is Mexico’s largest private sector employer with currently 209,000 employees. Allegedly there is a paper trail that includes hundreds of suspect payments worth more 24 million USD in total.
How do you fancy owning two Bugatti Veyrons, the fastest and priciest street car in the world, with a top speed of 250mph and a cost of €1m a pop? Or how about splashing out €18m on art formally owned by French fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent? How about affording all of this on your monthly salary of €3,200? These are just some of the luxuries enjoyed by Teodorin Obiang, eldest son of the autocratic president of Equatorial Guinea, in his position as the country’s agriculture and forestry minister, which were seized by French authorities in February on suspicions of corruption and money laundering.
To get to the bottom of corruption, Transparency International analyses a range of critical societal institutions (such as the business, media or political parties) and assesses their ability to prevent corruption. This ‘national integrity system’ assessment has been carried out in more than 70 countries worldwide, with 25 of the studies recently completed or being finalised across Europe.
The Greece report finds that several “pillars” of the Greek anti‐corruption system have fundamental flaws, the most significant of which is a crisis of values, typified by broad scale acceptance of and participation in corruption.
ATHENS – Efforts to reform and rebuild Greece’s economy in future will be undermined because the country’s government, businesses and civil servants not only fail to stop corruption but actively participate in it. The warning comes today from Transparency International Greece’s first ever assessment of the ability of important national institutions to fight corruption.
BERLIN – Corruption continues to plague too many countries around the world, according to Transparency International’s 2011 Corruption Perceptions Index released today. It shows some governments failing to protect citizens from corruption, be it abuse of public resources, bribery or secretive decision-making.
Transparency International warned that protests around the world, often fuelled by corruption and economic instability, clearly show citizens feel their leaders and public institutions are neither transparent nor accountable enough.
BERLIN – After the Arab Spring, an Indian Summer. In recent weeks, thousands of people have taken to the streets to support an Indian activist’s calls for stronger anti-corruption legislation, in the form of the Jan Lokpal bill, which would set up an independent anti-corruption body, and to protest his initial arrest on 16 August 2011.
As Libya prepares for the future, what are financial centres doing to stop the flow of stolen assets from dictators? The following is adapted from a speechmade by Transparency International’s vice-chair, Akere Muna, at the UN public service forum in Dar es Salaam, United Republic of Tanzania.
If corruption, especially money laundering and bribery are to be tackled, we need to see action not only from developing countries, but also countries that are home to major financial centres.
Here in Africa there is wide recognition that poor governance is one of the biggest barriers to sustainable development, what is missing is recognition of the wide responsibility that parties beyond Africa have for this problem.
Some developing countries are tired of waiting for developed countries to act. While I hear a more and more African leaders who recognise that governance issues have been a major barrier to economic development, there is also frustration that global action to stop the corruption that undermines governance is so inconsistence with commitments.
It is telling, therefore, that the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption goes actually goes further than the UN Anti-Corruption Convention in several ways, especially in private sector obligations. It tackles bribery between companies and calls on the private sector to participate in the fight against unfair competition and respect of tender procedures. It obliges governments to carry out research on the conduct of multinational companies in Africa.
LONDON – As the 2010 Bribery Act comes into force on the 1st July, anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International UK warns that the enforcement of the new Act could be undermined by a lack of resources.
BERLIN/DEAUVILLE – Transparency International (TI), the anti-corruption organisation, is calling on the Group of Eight countries to back up its Deauville Summit commitment to aid the fight against corruption in Arab Spring countries with concrete action to ensure recovery of stolen assets, and prevention of their flight in future.
In 1999 leaders from OECD countries took a big step. They committed to holding their companies to account for their behaviour abroad. Until then, bribing abroad to win contracts had largely been tacitly accepted and was even a tax deductible expense in at least 14 OECD countries.
The Global Corruption Report is the first comprehensive publication of its kind to explore the corruption risks related to tackling climate change. From international policy-making to national level mitigation and adaptation strategies and with a special focus on the forestry sector, the GCR draws on the expertise of more than 50 experts and practitioners from the anti-corruption movement and the climate change field.
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