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.
Brazil and South Africa have a great deal in common – flagging economies, falling exchange rates and public bonds nearing junk status – all fueled by mounting allegations of corruption. As if that weren’t bad enough, the ruling parties have also engaged in major confrontations with the rule of law, in a desperate and entirely self-serving effort to preserve the impunity of their national leaders.
Read MoreWorld soccer may have a new boss, but it will take longterm sustained efforts by FIFA to convince fans across the globe that the organization has really changed and is serving their interests, rather than its own.
Read MoreAcross the globe stride powerful people in government and business who operate as if they are above the law. They steal vast sums, live in extravagant luxury and arrogantly manipulate the systems and processes of justice in their favor. They are the untouchable kleptocrats. It is time they were brought to justice.
Read MoreThe United States, for example, imports about 1.5 million barrels of oil per day from countries whose governments are repressive and corrupt - governments where, to use a phrase that author Leif Wenar favors "might is right." Wenar, a professor of law and philosophy at Kings College, London, argues that the U.S. and other Western countries have the power to stop importing the "blood oil" that flows from these authoritarian states.
Read MoreU.S. citizens who have been victims of foreign state-organized terrorism will receive substantial compensation now with the funds coming from a surprising source, BNP Paribas, one of the largest banks in France and Europe. It is the bank that paid a record $9 billion in fines in 2014 for violating U.S. foreign sanctions laws.
Read MoreUnited States Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew chaired an unprecedented session of the United Nations Security Council on December 17. For the first time, it was finance ministers - not diplomats or ministers of foreign affairs - using the Security Council to drive international policy. Their target was terrorism, specifically the Islamic state (sometimes called ISIL, or ISIS, or Daesh).
Read MoreThe need for honest politicians serving the public's interests is at the core of the American system of democracy. Nevertheless, in the US, as in every country, politics and corruption too often go hand-in-hand. Now a New York jury has brought in a historic set of verdicts. Will it change the New York game?
Read MorePublic trust in the biggest banks is low. I have 10 specific recommendations to cure the banks of their evil ways. Bankers will not like most of my proposals, but the time has come for radical reform.
Read MoreOn 25 September 2015, the world’s leaders assembled at the UN in New York and made a historic statement in approving the 17 “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” as the drivers of policies, programs and projects for national governments and multilateral institutions. The SDGs are to come into effect on January 1, 2016 and run to 2030.
Read MoreIn late September, world leaders meeting at the United Nations reviewed the progress being made to improve the human rights of women and girls across the globe. As The Guardian reported: "Twenty years after landmark conference in Beijing, more than 80 heads of state recommit to women’s empowerment, with progress vital to meet global goal."
Read MoreRepresentatives from more than 110 countries met in Malaysia at the Transparency International annual meeting and then joined hundreds of other activists from across the world at the 2015 International Anti-Corruption Conference at the start of September. The timing was perfect, because later this month a landmark decision will be taken in the fight against impunity and corruption at the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Read More“South Africa Ignores its Obligations to Justice,” trumpeted The Financial Times in an editorial headline on June 16, 2015.
The previous day, while South Africa’s high court was preparing a possible arrest warrant on behalf of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Sudan’s President Omar el-Bashir departed for home in his presidential plane from a South African military airport. He had attended a meeting of the African Union – a body which has long decried the ICC and which has gone to lengths to protect African leaders who have been accused of massively murdering their citizens and, as in the case of el-Bashir, of genocide.
Read MoreThe more you dig into the details of the prosecutions that have been announced into world football (what is called soccer in the U.S.), so the more one understands the staggering scale of the conspiracies. “Let me be clear: this indictment is not the final chapter in our investigation,” stated Acting U.S. Attorney Kelly T. Currie of the Eastern District of New York. Indeed, there are likely to be many more cases, not just in the U.S. and Switzerland, but in other countries as well.
Read MoreFrom the comparatively modest malfeasance in the New York State legislature (both the State assembly Speaker as well as the Senate majority leader have been indicted for corruption) to the mega-million dollar graft engulfing Brazilian businessmen and politicians today, on to the all-consuming kleptocracy in the Kremlin, the abuse of public office for private gain is rampant.
Read MoreZuzana Ruzickova was one of the few to survive Bergen-Belsen. Her years of Nazi concentration camps and following decades of Czechoslovak Communist Party oppression did not crush her determination to become one of the world's foremost performers of J.S. Bach - her life and her triumph is the subject now of a major documentary movie to be competed in late 2016. So this article looks at Bergen-Belsen's liberation.
Read MoreMultiple major corruption crises are splashing across the front pages of newspapers across the globe. Taken together, these crises are contributing to global insecurity and to financial and economic instability, while they are challenging freedom and democracy in many countries.
The individual cases of grand corruption involving political leaders are reported case by case. The dangerous mega-impact, however, is only really evident by looking at the crises in combination.
Read MoreSome of the best of the recent books are attracting extraordinary attention in the United States. Sarah Chayes’s brand new Thieves of State – Why Corruption Threatens Global Security has been the topic of an hour-long national radio program, the focus of a lengthy The New Yorker article and centre stage in Washington’s think tank seminar listings.
Read More“An Albany Powerhouse on the Edge of a Volcano” ran the front page New York Times headline. Sheldon Silver, the long-serving Speaker of the New York State assembly, has been charged with a host of counts of corruption charges. Silver, who has occupied his post since 1994, is the third most powerful politician in New York (after the Governor of the state and the Mayor of New York City). He says he is innocent. Preet Bharara (photo), the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, supported by extensive evidence uncovered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) takes a different view.
Read MoreThe First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States guarantees freedom of expression by prohibiting Congress from restricting the press or the rights of individuals to speak freely. Today, the U.S. Government spends more than $100 million each year to promote the values of the First Amendment across the world.
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