A series of loan suspensions and internal investigations has everyone at the World Bank talking about corruption; despite high-profile moves by president Paul Wolfowitz, the root causes of corruption - underpaid civil servants, an acceptance of bribery by big business, and dirty money - remain largely unaddressed.

In the US, the Bank has been under intense pressure to stamp out corruption from a series of senate hearings over the last two years. The latest of these hearings, held by the Commi more...

Assessing and understanding the sources and methods of money laundering and terrorist financing in a jurisdiction is essential for competent authorities to develop and implement an effective anti-money laundering/counter-terrorist financing (ML/TF) programme. A national risk assessment can be regarded in this respect as a key tool to set priorities and develop a coherent and strategic planning. This report from the Financial Action Task Force, setting the standards in the anti money laundering a more...

A seminar on the criminalisation of corruption was organised in March 2007 in the framework of the Anti Corruption Network (ACN) for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The aim was to address some of the issues identified as more difficult to implement by the countries participating in the ACN initiative, and notably: liability of the legal entity, confiscation of proceeds and anti money laundering. The proceeds of the seminar are available in a compilation, that includes the concrete experiences o more...

Pursuant to resumed judicial assistance proceedings, the Swiss Federal Office of Justice (FOJ) has frozen the assets of former Haitian president Jean-Claude Duvalier and his associates in Switzerland.
The Duvalier case dates to 1986 when the Haitian authorities submitted an international judicial assistance request to Switzerland and requested the former leader's assets to be frozen. The block was eventually implemented in 2002. Since then, the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), in c more...

The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) released the preliminary results of the mutual legal assessment of the anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorist financing (CFT) measures adopted by the Russian Federation for compliance with the FATF standards.

The assessment was conducted by the Eurasian Group (EAG and Moneyval) between October and November 2007.

The AML/CFT system so far implemented by Russia is making progress with respect to the FATF standards, but is still lacking grip more...

The Swiss authorities concluded a 12 years long proceeding and decided to hand over to Mexico assets of Raul Salinas totalling approximately USD 74 million.
This case is part of Switzerland's efforts in the direction of preventing abuse of its financial centre and returning assets of criminal origin to the victims.

The Mexican authorities are conducting a criminal investigation into the activities of Raul Salinas and others in connection with money laundering and the embezzlement of public more...

Ten years after their adoption, the OECD Working Group on Bribery is undertaking a review of the OECD Instruments on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.

As an essential part of this review, the Working Group conducted an online public consultation between 10 January and 31 March 2008.
Stakeholders were asked to comment on a consultation paper which presents the major issues that have arisen in the course of monitoring implementation of thos more...

THE Ugandan, Kenyan and Tanzanian anti-corruption authorities have signed a declaration to deny safe haven to corrupt persons and investment of ill-gotten wealth in the sister countries.
They agreed to cooperate in extradition, legal assistance, asset recovery and return of the proceeds from corrupt offenders.

KPMG's second global anti-money laundering survey looks at how banks around the world are approaching AML. It also focuses on the specific issues facing banks in the various geographical regions and, where appropriate, compares the findings with our 2004 survey.

The General Assembly of the State Council of the PRC resolved to adopt the new PRC Anti- Money Laundering Law (AML Law) at its 24th meeting on 31 October 2006. The new AML Law will be effective from 1 January 2007. Subsequently, the People’s Bank of China (POBC) issued the Financial Institutions Anti-Money Laundering Regulations (effective from 1 January 2007) (AML Regulations) and the Financial Institutions Reporting and Monitoring Schemes for Large and Suspicious Transactions (effective from more...