Anti-Corruption • Ethics & Integrity
Frank has been engaged with global economics, banking, governance and anti-corruption for more than 40 years, as a journalist, as a World Bank senior official, as an anti-corruption civil society leader, and as a top level advisor to financial institutions. Frank is President of Vogl Communications, Inc., which has provided advice to leaders of international finance for more than two decades.
No U.S. secretary of state devoted as much energy, time and determination to encourage non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in many difficult and dangerous parts of the world to speak truth to power. Her actions in support of human rights, the building of democracy, the strengthening of the rule of law, and opposition to government-driven corruption, were remarkable.
Read MoreIt was late 1992 and Peter Eigen was putting the finishing touches to plans that would see the launch of Transparency International in 1993. For several years Eigen, then a veteran World Bank senior official, had been waging a campaign inside the Bank and across the development aid community to build understanding of how corruption – the abuse of power for personal gain – was wrecking anti-poverty projects in many of the world’s poorest countries.
Read MoreThe 2012 Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), published this week, finds Afghanistan at absolute rock bottom, sharing this dismal place with North Korea and Somalia. Despite the flow to Afghanistan over the last decade of hundreds of billions of dollars of Western – mostly American – economic and military aid, this country is a rotten cesspool of corruption.
Read MoreMany of my friends leading human rights and anti-corruption organizations from Bahrain to Zimbabwe face rising threats from national governments and their security forces. The vice is tightening in one country after another on activists for human rights, political reform, freedom of speech, and anti-corruption.
Read MoreThe Greek government, under international pressure to attack rampant domestic corruption, acted on Monday by hauling an investigative journalist into court. Costas Vaxevanis faces trial for having published the names of 2,059 Greeks who have accounts at the HSBC bank in Switzerland.
Read MoreThe blasts at bankers as being corrupt are not about to subside. Recent high-profile allegations against some of the largest banks, from charges of interest rate manipulation, to breaking U.S. sanctions on Iran, to vast money-laundering schemes, are just a taste of what is to come. Never before have there been so many investigations by such a multitude of official agencies in the U.S. and abroad of the possible malfeasance of bankers.
Read MoreHas the brilliance of the Arab Spring been quashed by the horrors of an Arab Winter, as evidenced by the murder of US Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi, Libya, the coming to power of the Moslem Brotherhood in Egypt, the rising prominence in Tunisia and beyond of the radical Salafis, and the brutality of the Syrian regime?
Read Moreresident Obama's major speech to the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2012, will be a powerful inspiration to civil society activists across the world who are fighting for democracy, an end to human rights abuse, for press freedom, for justice, and against corruption.
Read MoreDespite heavy lobbying by some of the United States’ most powerful corporations, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has taken a bold decision in support of transparency. The US Chamber of Commerce claimed that to force US oil, gas and mining companies to reveal details of their foreign payments to natural resources’ host governments would cost a whopping US$16 billion.
Read MoreReducing corruption is a top priority for Americans as they look at the upcoming elections. Yet the candidates are not discussing the issue. Will the reporters posing questions in the presidential debates raise the topic? I doubt it.
Read MoreStandard Chartered Bank, headquartered in the UK, has agreed to settle charges by New York’s banking regulators that it engaged in as much as $250 billion of illicit banking transactions on behalf of Iran in recent years. The bank is paying $340 million to end this legal fracas, but this is not the end of its troubles, just the beginning.
Read MoreAt least 15 of the world’s biggest banks are being investigated by national authorities on both sides of the Atlantic for rigging interest rates, which possibly involved trillions of dollars of transactions, from the mortgages of you and me, to what big corporations have had to pay. So far, only Barclays Bank has been forced to settle – it was fined over $400 million and its chief executive and board chairman were forced to resign.
Read MoreAllegations of insider trading at Nomura, money laundering at HSBC, interest rate manipulation at Barclays – it’s one scandal after another! Some say mega-banks are too complex to manage and control, others blame bad management, still others say the culture is rotten. Corruption abounds. Greed, secrecy, arrogance, lack of a moral compass, and opportunity all combine in too many financial institutions.
Read MoreThe UK is in the midst of an avalanche of corruption, yet as if by magic, it will not place the multiple scandals on hold and distract itself with a feast of Olympic sport. The festivities may indeed bring joy to the public at large, although an abundance of press reports suggest Londoners are grumpy about everything from the rain to the traffic to the sheer cost of the games.
Read MoreThe euro crisis will not be resolved until the citizens of Europe have greater confidence in the ability and the willingness of their national leaders to serve the public interest. Pundits may blame the bankers and politicians may blame the press, but over the last year on many trips to Brussels and Athens I have seen both the patent lack of political leadership and the deep mistrust of ordinary middle class Europeans.
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