June 26 -- Key Victory for Panama Workers. Cultural Survival reported on a June 19 a decision by the the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in support of the Ngöbe Indians of western Panama that calls on Panama to suspend all work on a hydroelectric dam that threatens the Ngöbe homeland. The Chan-75 Dam is being built across the Changuinola River by the government of Panama and a subsidiary of the Virginia-based energy giant AES Corporation.

June 25 - Greeks Press Siemens Case. AP reported that Michael Christoforakos, a former senior executive of German industrial conglomerate Siemens AG, was arrested in Germany and faces charges in Greece of money laundering and bribery. This is part of an investigation into Greek telecom contracts.

June 24 - Ikea, Citing Corruptions, Halts Investing in Russia. The New York Times reported Ikea said it is suspending further investment in Russia. The company’s founder, the secretive billionaire Ingvar Kamprad, 83, said on Swedish radio that Ikea had decided not to solve problems by slipping money under the table. The decision is particularly damning for Russia because Ikea runs outlets in dozens of countries around the world and is hardly thin-skinned when it comes to dealing with bureaucracies.

June 24 - Too Many Chinese Complain. A Chinese website set up so people can inform on corrupt officials has been inundated with so many visitors that it crashed shortly after launching. the BBC reported the website was designed to cope with a maximum of 1,000 people making a complaint at the same time. But the number of people using the site far exceeded this when it was launched on Monday.

June 4 – Shortfalls Still in Corporate Social Responsibility. ITPRO reported that a new IBM survey shows major gaps in sustainability strategies with many companies lacking both the knowledge and initiative to incorporate CSR. Companies are becoming more interested in beefing up their corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategies, but they are still stalling when comes to actual execution. Businesses do not compile and analyse enough CSR data to implement real changes that could increase efficiency, lower costs, reduce environmental impact and improve their reputation with key shareholders and customers, according to the survey.

May 5 - Shell to clash with investors on pay. The Financial Times reported that shareholders in Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s biggest oil company, have been advised by RiskMetrics, the international voting agency, to vote against a pay plan in protest over awards made to top executives. Investor groups assert that Shell failed to meet performance objectives, yet still set major pay rises for top managers. Total pay of Peter Voser, who will take over as chief executive in July, increased by 45 per cent to €4.14m.

May 2 - Gunfight Breaks Out as Iraqi Soldiers Try to Arrest Trade Officials. The Washington Post reported from Baghdad that an effort by members of Parliament to prosecute what they say is a nest of corruption in the Trade Ministry led to a gun battle between ministry officials and Iraqi soldiers and the sudden disappearance of the trade minister and several senior ministry officials. Anticorruption officials accompanied by Iraqi soldiers went to the ministry’s headquarters to carry out arrest warrants on corruption charges against nine officials. “The Trade Ministry has become one of the most significant arteries for corruption and squandering of public funds in Iraq,” Sabah al-Saedi, head of Parliament’s integrity committee, told reporters.

April 4 – Former Top UK Banker Refuses to Cut Pension. After massive losses, the Royal Bank of Scotland ousted CEO Sir Fred Goodwin last October, but ever since a battle royal has been waged by politicians to convince Sir Fred, 50, to take a cut in his lifetime annual UK £703,000 pension – now RBS shareholders have overwhelmingly passed a motion calling for Sir Fred to the decent thing, as they said. And new RBS Chairman Sir Philip Hampton told the bank's annual meeting that he has called on Sir Fred to take a reduction. But, on the week-end British papers ran stories declaring Sir Fred refuses to budge and will keep the cash, reported Reuters. RBS is now 70% owned by the UK Government.

April 3 - Leading Austrian Banker Freed on Euro 100 million bail.  Austrian prosecutors are alleging that Julius Meinl, one of the country’s most prominent bankers, has been at the center of an enormous multi-billion euro international set of corporate scams. Bloomberg reported that after being held in custody he has now been released after posting 100 million euros ($134 million) bail. Meinl’s bank claims it is not impacted by the charges, but this is the second bank in Vienna to recently be caught in a scandal, with a rival having lost more than $2 billion of client cash on investing with Bernard Madoff in the United States.

April 2 - Former Illinois Governor Indicted The New York Times reported from Chicago, "Rod R. Blagojevich, this state’s ousted governor, was charged on Thursday with 16 felony counts, among them racketeering conspiracy, wire fraud and extortion conspiracy in a wide-ranging scheme to deprive residents of “honest government,” prosecutors said, including trying to leverage his authority to pick someone to fill President Obama’s former Senate seat." Mr. Blagojevich, who was believed to be vacationing with his family near Walt Disney World in Florida when the indictment was announced, issued a statement through his publicist. “I am innocent. I now will fight in the courts to clear my name.” he said. (NOT GUILTY - on April 14 in his first court appearance the former Governor pleaded not bguilty - CBS reported)

April 2 - Bad Day for KPMG.
- Two former KPMG partners received stiff sentences for aiding a major tax evasion scheme. The Wall Street Journal said they were given prison sentences of 97 months 121 months plus multi-million dollar fines.
- Auditors sued for $1 billion by liquidators of former huge sub-prime mortgage lender New Century. The Financial Times reported the liquidators claim KPMG was responsible for New Century's collapse.

(NEW CENTURY FINANCIAL: the demise of New Century, once one of the largest sub-prime mortgage lenders in the United States, revealed extraordiny problems in corporate governance. Michael J. Missal, a partner at K&L Gates LLP, Washington DC, was the court appointed examiner in the New Century Financial Corporation bankruptcy. He released a voluminous official report that reads like a detective novel in spring 2008 and he and a colleague at the law firm, Lisa M. Richman, examined the governance issues in an article last October for Mortgage Banking magazine.)

Trace Releases DVD on Toxic Transactions - The hour long movie features interviews with anti-bribery experts around the world.

Trace says - The video features high-profile anti-bribery case studies and interviews with executives at companies such as Siemens, GE and Tyco, as well as the Department of Justice, Securities and Exchange Commission, World Bank, OECD, and UK Serious Fraud Office.

SIR – Certain assertions in your article on transparency in financial markets deserve to be reconsidered (Economics focus, February 21st). You describe transparency as amorphous, criticise it as costly and say it takes second place to trust in the money markets. It is hardly surprising that shortcomings may arise from inaccurate, immaterial and incomparable publicly available information, but transparency as a principle cannot be blamed.

A hefty prospectus veiled in legal jargon should not be considered a transparent tool of disclosure; it is a means of obfuscation. The sheer complexity of repackaging subprime loans to achieve AAA credit-ratings is indicative of efforts to deceive through disguise. Trust in financial markets vanished when the lack of transparency became apparent; it is only through transparency that investor confidence and public trust can be won back. As for “symmetry”, some investors will always be able to use information better than others, but this information should be available to all. Transparency leads to a level playing field.

The failure of the markets has resulted in massive bail-outs. By comparison, the costs of disclosure in well-regulated markets are borne by all those who promote a risk, or transfer it to others. From preventing excessive short-term risk-taking to exposing potential conflicts of interest, transparency is key to ensuring that confidence is restored.

Huguette Labelle
Chair Transparency International, Berlin.

• Most Kenyans surveyed would like to see more and conclusive prosecutions of individuals implicated in mega scandals

Feb 26 - Liberian Blood Diamonds Convictions - Statement. Global Witness has welcomed the Special Court for Sierra Leone's conviction yesterday of three senior commanders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) for war crimes and crimes against humanity. "These verdicts are a chilling reminder of how the trade in diamonds and other natural resources has underwritten some of the worst war crimes of the past two decades," said Global Witness Campaigner Mike Davis."