Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

Riochard Murphy observes that in a recent study, Global Witness, Tax Justice Network, Christian Aid and Global Financial Integrity explains how illicit financial flows out of the developing world is entrenching poverty. These flows include tax evasion, abusive transfer mispricing and the proceeds of corruption. All of these illicit financial flows are facilitated by global financial opacity, both in tax havens and major financial centres.

Unfortunately tax havens and major financial centres deny the issue, like Luxembourg. However the calculation is realistic enough despite secrecy to be aware that the issue exist whatever the accurate amounts.

 

 

The current global financial crisis marks a rare moment when the interests of developing and developed countries are closely aligned.

The2009 Annual Conference of the Task Force on Financial Integrity and Economic Development will take place next week in Washington, DC.

The conference will highlight how a common approach to greater financial transparency can benefit rich and poor nations alike.

 

Speakers will address country-by-country reporting of income and tax paid by multinational corporations, listing beneficial ownership of subsidiaries , automatic exchange of tax information between governments, curtailing trade mispricing, harmonizing predicate crimes for money laundering charges among FATF countries, and other issues of transparency that continue to hamper development in poor nations. Among the list of leading experts slated to speak are U.S. Senator Carl Levin and scholars Dr. Francis Fukuyama and Dr. Paul Collier

 

The agenda sounds particularly relevant:

 

Panel 1 - Transfer Pricing

Alex Cobham, Christian Aid,  Chair

Jack Blum, Chairman, Tax Justice Network

Krishen Mehta, Director, Asia Initiatives

Raymond Baker, Director, Global Financial Integrity, Center for International Policy

 

Horizons 1 – Magnitudes and Directions

James Boyce, Director, Program on Development, Peacebuilding, and the Environment,

Political Economy Research Institute, & Professor, Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,  Chair

Dev Kar, Lead Economist, Global Financial Integrity, Center for International Policy

Keynote – The Honorable John Kerry, United States Senator

 

Panel 2 – Automatic Exchange

John Christensen, Director, Tax Justice Network, Chair

David Spencer, Tax Justice Network

Martin Sullivan, Tax Analysts

Jonathan Winer, Senior Vice President, APCO Worldwide Inc

 

Horizons 2 – Norwegian Panel of Economists

Harald Tollan, Norwegian Agency for Development Co-operation,  Chair

Dr. Odd-Helge Fjeldstad, Research Director, Public Sector Reform, Chr. Michelsen Institute

Fridtjov Thorkildsen, Director, Governance and Anti-Corruption Unit, Norad

 

Panel 3 – Country-by-Country Reporting

Gavin Hayman, Campaigns Director, Global Witness,  Chair

Richard Murphy, Tax Research LLP

Horacio Peña, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Keynote – The Honorable Carl Levin, United States Senator

Francis Fukuyama, Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of International Political

Economy & Director, International Development Program, The Paul H. Nitze

School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

 

Panel 4 – Beneficial Ownership

Charles Davidson, Publisher & CEO,  The American Interest, Chair

Emery Kobor, Assistant Director, Strategic Policy Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, US Department of the Treasury

James McDonald, President, Rockefeller & Co., Inc.

Anthea Lawson, Global Witness

 

Horizons 3 – Asset Recovery

Lord Daniel Brennan, Counsel, Matrix Chambers, Chair

Adrian Fozzard, Coordinator, STAR Project, World Bank

Alan Bacarese, Basel Institute

Ken Hurwitz, Anticorruption Senior Legal Officer, Open Society Institute

Keynote – Gayle Smith, Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for

Relief, Stabilization, and Reconstruction, National Security Council

 

Panel 5 – Predicate Offenses

François Valerian, Head of Private Sector Programs, Transparency International, Chair

Heather Lowe, Legal Counsel & Director of Government Affairs, Global Financial Integrity

Chip Poncy, Director, Office of Terrorist Financing & Financial Crimes, US Department of the Treasury

Nick Podsiadly, U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary

 

Horizons 4 – Economists’ Advisory Council

Paul Collier, Director, Centre for the Study of African Economies, & Professor of Economics, Oxford University Department of Economics, Chair

Seeraj Mohamed, Director, Corporate Strategy and Industrial Development Research

Programme (CSID), School of Economics and Business Sciences University of the

Witwatersrand

 

 

 

Read draft agenda

 

 

The AFP has reported that French lawmakers propose crackdown on tax havens .

They proposed 30 measures to crack down on tax havens and money laundering, including getting rid of 500-euro notes, as it is currently the largest denomination of a major currency in circulation, and that "laundering of dirty money very often resorts to cash.".

The report urges the government to compile its own list of countries uncooperative in cracking down on money laundering and then block branches of companies registered in such countries from operating in France.

The report also proposes "blocking access to French territorial waters for ships flying flags of convenience registered in tax havens."

The limit for transactions conducted should also be reduced to 3,000 euros between individuals and 1,100 euros for businesses, it said.

Lawmakers also call for the creation of a new financial crime investigation service.

 

Read the report (French)