By Miroslav Palanský and Moran Harari First published on the U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre blog Corruption happens in two main stages. The first is the actual act of receiving something of value: a monetary bribe passed under a table, a public procurement contract awarded to a classmate from high school, a law quietly rewritten to Read more >
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Image: International Monetary Fund The G20 Development Working Group (DWG) has released a document outlining its call to action for countries to adopt what it terms voluntary and non-binding high-level principles for combating illicit financial flows (IFFs). The DWG falls under the G20’s Sherpa track and is the key G20 forum for the discussion of Read more >
The Tax Justice Network (TJN) released the 2025 edition of its Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) on 3 June 2025, following on the previous edition released in 2022. The key finding, says the organisation, is that those countries who provide the most financial secrecy are clearly moving towards autocracy. Of this year’s top 10, says TJN, Read more >
Image: International Monetary Fund Illicit financial flows (IFFs) have been, and continue to be, a huge problem for developing countries, especially. They hinder countries’ ability to meet the UN sustainable development goals, because they undermine the fiscal systems which are in place to collect government revenue, and reduce the amount of funds available for development Read more >
First published on Financial Transparency Coalition During the last decade, Russia has expanded its interests and presence in Africa by investing in the mining sector and increasing military support to fragile states, primarily through private military contractors and mercenaries. One of Africa’s most prominent private military groups is the Wagner Group, believed to be financed by one Read more >
Illicit financial flows create an unjust society and further worsen inequality, especially for underdeveloped countries. This is the message from the Tax Justice Network (TJN), which released its 2022 Financial Secrecy Index (FSI) on 16 May. The FSI is a ranking of jurisdictions which fuel financial secrecy by helping individuals to hide their finances from Read more >
In part 3 of our new mini-series on financial secrecy, we focus on the Corporate Tax Haven Index (CTHI), published by the Tax Justice Network (TJN) – the 2021 edition, released in March, is the second since 2019. Part 1 of the series looked at the definition of and gave information on secrecy jurisdictions and Read more >
The term ‘secrecy jurisdiction’ might, for many, conjure up the image of a fortified bank vault deep underground in a Swiss city, or a tropical island teeming with wealthy individuals and located far away from troublesome laws and regulations. And indeed, the world’s greatest enabler of global financial secrecy is currently the sunny Cayman Islands, Read more >
In our new mini-series we’ll delve into the issue of financial secrecy – what it is, who enables it, how does it affect economies, which are the big culprits, and what role does corruption play? The series is based on two reports released by the Tax Justice Network (TJN) – the biennial Financial Secrecy Index, Read more >