Shah and Currinder: A leader with integrity wouldn’t accept $175,000 in gifts (FCPA Blog)
July 14, 2016In a unanimous decision, the Supreme Court vacated former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s eleven corruption convictions. The jury that convicted McDonnell was given erroneous instructions, according to the Court. At issue was the question of what constitutes an “official act.” Read more
Co-Written by: Shruti Shah, Vice President, Programs and Operations, TI-USA
Corruption: Moving money out of purgatory (The Financial Times)
July 5, 2016It is difficult enough for law enforcement agencies to successfully bring international graft cases and seize stolen assets. But it is proving just as difficult to return the money to the citizens without it landing back in the hands of the thieves. “When you think about the money that’s stolen it’s like an inverted pyramid,” says Shruti Shah, vice-president of programmes and operations at Transparency International USA. “The top is the money that’s stolen. A smaller percentage is frozen and a minuscule percentage is actually returned. Read more
Gov. McDonnell and the Supremes: Corruption by any other name is still corruption (FCPA Blog)
June 17, 2016The Supreme Court of the United States is currently finalizing its review of former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s 2015 conviction, with the Court’s opinion expected at the end of June. Read more
Contributors: Claudia Dumas, Jacqueline deGramont
The Bank Robber (The New Yorker Magazine)
May 23, 2016Money has a tendency to move, and Switzerland is hardly the only tax haven. If it becomes impractical to hide fortunes there, the money could migrate to Singapore, or, for that matter, to America. Shruti Shah, the vice-president of Transparency International U.S.A., recently found that in such states as Delaware and Nevada it is easier to establish an anonymous shell company than it is to obtain a library card. Read more
Shruti Shah on the U.S. response to the Panama Papers: A step in the right direction but more action is needed. (FCPA Blog)
May 9, 2016The massive leak dubbed the Panama Papers has given the UK Anti-Corruption Summit on May 12 an unexpected boost. Those coming to the summit, now including the U.S., are lining up to make announcements about the steps they are taking to tackle corruption and specifically financial secrecy. Read more
Obama Addresses Mixed Monthly Employment Report [TI-USA quoted] [NPR] [Audio]
May 6, 2016TI-USA’s Shruti Shah says when shell companies open accounts here, bankers need to understand who really owns, controls and profits from the money. “One of the problems that was highlighted in the Panama Papers was that often officials named in executive positions or in managerial positions for anonymous companies are figureheads. They don’t actually control the entity.” Read More.
Five EU nations launch tax crackdown [BBC] [Video] [TI-USA Quoted]
April 14, 2016TI-USA Shruti Shah states, regarding UK, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain automatically sharing tax information, that “It is a great first step but a lot more work needs to be done; there is one player missing from the list that is the US; and this also shows that the UK needs to do more work in its own backyard and tackle overseas territories. Information on who truly owns these companies in these overseas territories also needs to be available.” Read More.
Cracking down on shell companies: a years-long debate (Marketplace) (Audio) (TI-USA Quoted)
April 7, 2016“As of now, U.S. financial institutions, while they’re required to do customer due diligence, they’re not really required to determine and verify the true beneficial owner of their corporate clients,” said Shruti Shah, vice president of the nonprofit Transparency International – USA. “That’s a loophole.” Read More.
Latest News On The Panama Papers (Wisconsin Public Radio, NPR) (Audio) (TI-USA Quoted)
April 7, 2016A large data leak called the Panama Papers recently accused a number of world leaders of hiding money in offshore bank accounts to avoid taxes. Shruti Shah explains what we know so far about the documents, and the fallout that could come from the scandal. Read More.