Monthly Archives: August 2025

Preserving the Independence of Anticorruption Institutions Under Pressure From War, Politics, and Populism: Lessons from the Ukraine Crisis

Posted on by
Reply

On July 22 Ukraine’s parliament approved without debate or warning legislation sharply curbing the independence of Ukraine’s corruption fighting agencies. Nine days later it okayed a second bill largely repealing the curbs. In between were massive demonstrations by citizens protesting the July 22 law and threats by the European Union to cut financial support.

Ukraine’s Institute for Legislative Ideas today published a report offering lessons from these events. The think tank’s analysis explains who and what was behind the attempt to defang the nation’s anticorruption agency and special corruption prosecutor and how the sudden backtracking is likely to affect Ukraine’s fight against corruption. Along the way the report provides a careful legal analysis of the July 22 legislation, what the second bill repeals and what it leaves intact; the stated reason for the July 22 law (cleanse the agencies of “Russian influence”); the real reason for its passage (investigations were getting too close to those in power), and what civil society and international partners must do to ensure there is no further effort to undermine the fight.

Critical reading not only for those concerned about corruption in Ukraine but for those in other nations where a transnational coalition is working to keep the corruption fight on track.

The English text of the report is here.

Justice for Fishrot Victims Once More Delayed

Posted on by
Reply

Thanks to a last-minute legal maneuver, defendants in Namibia’s largest ever corruption case again escaped answering for their crimes. Set to start August 5, their trial was postponed pending a ruling on a long-shot motion to invalidate all pre-trial rulings. While unlikely to succeed, the motion opens the chance for even more delay as its denial will almost surely be appealed.

It is now approaching six years since former Justice Minister Sacky Shanghala, former Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister Bernard Esau and accomplices were arrested for their roles in a bribery scheme giving Icelandic fishing company Samherji the exclusive right to catch horse mackerel in Namibian territorial waters.

Dubbed the “Fishrot scandal,” the case initially promised much. To Namibians who lost their livelihood thanks to the scheme, the chance for compensation. To the international community, a demonstration that a young nation still consolidating democratic norms could hold the powerful to account. 

What the case has become instead is another demonstration of a principle all too common in corruption cases: justice delayed is justice denied.

Continue reading →

Pressure Growing on OECD Antibribery Working Group to Review Italy’s Noncompliance

Posted on by
Reply

As a party to the OECD Antibribery Convention, Italy is bound by international law to investigate any Italian citizen or company alleged to have bribed an official of another government. In pursuing a case, the treaty requires that Italy “not be influenced by considerations of national economic interest. . . or the identity of the natural or legal persons involved.”

Successive Italian governments have ignored the no favoritism requirement. Economically important and politically influential Italian firms have regularly escaped punishment on the flimsiest of grounds: €10.5 million paid to a foreign public official’s cousins called not a bribe but a “consulting fee,” €197 million to well-connected insiders termed a “lobbying fee” (here).

Italy’s most recent breach of its treaty obligation: the refusal to appeal the acquittal of oil giant and partially state-owned firm Eni for paying a $1.1 billion bribe to Nigerian officials. A case where the evidence of wrongdoing was overwhelming (here); the trial court’s acquittal reeks of judicial incompetence or worse (here); and in an extraordinary, unprecedented move that will surely deter future foreign bribery cases, the prosecutors are themselves being prosecuted for pursuing the case (here).

That economic considerations or political pressure might dissuade a government from enforcing its foreign antibribery law was not lost on the drafters of the Antibribery Convention. To guard against it the included an article requiring the parties to submit to a “program of systematic follow-up to monitor and promote the full implementation of this Convention.”  That follow up takes the form of a periodic review of compliance by the Antibribery Working Group, a committee consisting of a representative from each treaty party with a senior diplomat chairing.

On its website the Working Group stresses its commitment “to global engagement on anti-bribery.” Italy’s flagrant treaty violations have sparked anticorruption activists to take the group on its promise of a global dialogue. Last October more than two dozen of them asked it to review Italy’s compliance (here); in a tightly reasoned 47-page submission this June a coalition of civil society groups laid out the case for considering Italy’s (non)compliance (a request later amended to overcome the reason the chair gave for putting off review – amended submission here).

Most recently the Federación Latinoamericana de Fiscales, a federation of national associations of prosecutors from Latin American states, has written to the court hearing the Italian prosecutors’ case to emphasize that the proceedings are “undermining the sense of security and institutional trust that all prosecutors must have” to faithfully discharge their duties (here).

Past time for the Working Group to act.