Author Archives: Matthew Stephenson

Unknown's avatar

About Matthew Stephenson

Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

Announcement: Academia against Corruption in the Americas Conference (Call for Proposals)

Posted on by
Reply

GAB is happy to welcome back Bonnie J. Palifka, Associate Professor of Economics at Mexico’s Tecnológico de Monterrey (ITESM), who shares the following announcement:

The first Academia against Corruption in the Americas (ACA) conference, which I am organizing, will be held June 22-23, 2018 in Monterrey, Mexico. The purpose of this conference is three-fold:

  • First, to share research (working papers or already published) from all fields on corruption in the Americas, or general research on corruption by scholars based in the Americas;
  • Second, to share anticorruption teaching experiences (courses, activities, approaches) and so inspire others;
  • Third, to create an anticorruption academic network specific to the Americas.

I would like to encourage all academic researchers interested in participating in this conference to submit proposals to me at bonnie@itesm.mx.

  • Proposals for the research sessions should be full papers on any corruption or anticorruption topic, with preference for those studying corruption or anticorruption in any part of the Americas.
  • Proposals for the curriculum sessions should be the syllabus, teaching notes, or Power Point presentations relating to your experience teaching (anti)corruption.

Proposals are due by March 1, and decisions will be made by March 15. Proposals will be accepted and reviewed in English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French, but presentations at the conference must be in English or Spanish.  Please share the calls for proposals with other corruption scholars, and I hope to see some of you in Monterrey this June.

Guest Post: How District Attorneys Can Avoid Conflicts of Interest in Campaign Fundraising

Posted on by
3

Jennifer Rodgers, Executive Director of the Columbia University Law School’s Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (CAPI), and Izaak Bruce, CAPI Research Fellow, contribute the following guest post:

Last fall, New York County District Attorney Cyrus Vance received quite a bit of negative press for his handling of potential cases involving some high-profile potential defendants. In one case, Vance declined to bring sexual assault charges in 2015 against Harvey Weinstein despite a detailed victim account. In another case, back in 2012, Vance ultimately decided not to criminally charge members of the Trump family for making false and misleading statements to promote one of their real estate ventures, again despite what on the surface appeared to be credible evidence of wrongdoing. Of course, prosecutors have to make difficult judgment calls all the time about what cases to bring, often based on information that outsiders do not have access to and/or are not in a good position to judge. But what made these cases so troublesome to many was the suggestion or insinuation of improper influence. The New York County DA is an elected position, and in both the Weinstein case and the Trump case, the attorneys who successfully convinced Vance not to bring charges also made hefty donations to Vance’s reelection campaign.

Vance and his supporters insist that there was no impropriety, let alone a quid pro quo, and rightly point out that DAs raise substantial campaign contributions from many attorneys. But the reports were nonetheless deeply troubling, not least because these incidents evince a more general problem. In a couple of cases, DAs have been convicted for accepting campaign contributions as bribes in exchange for favorable defendant outcomes; much more common, however, is the appearance of impropriety caused by campaign donations from individuals involved in cases before the district attorney’s office; these are problematic even if no underlying crime is proved. And of course there is always the possibility of unconscious bias when a DA makes decisions about criminal cases that involve a campaign donor, even if the DA believes his or her decision making is unaffected. Yet despite these obvious problems, there are very few legal limits on donations by individuals to district attorneys, either in New York or elsewhere. In New York, for example, campaign contributors can give a DA candidate up to the maximum amount (almost $50,000 in New York County) with no regard for whether those contributions might lead to a conflict of interest or an unconscious bias on the part of the district attorney. And there is virtually no guidance for DAs on how to handle these potential or apparent conflict-of interest issues.

To help address this problem, my organization, the Center for the Advancement of Public Integrity (CAPI) at Columbia Law School, recently released a report on DA fundraising practices. DA Vance, to his credit, specifically requested this review, which included an examination of his own campaign fundraising practices. In conducting its review, CAPI considered the donation acceptance policies of DA Vance’s campaign, and analyzed contributions to his campaigns over his three election cycles, paying particular attention to contributions from attorneys. CAPI conducted research into applicable laws, regulations, and guidance for DAs, and lawyers generally, in this area, and interviewed numerous stakeholders on the topic, including DAs, election regulators, good governance groups, and legal ethics experts, to learn from their experiences and solicit their views. After conducting this review, the report offered seven recommendations for DAs to follow to avoid actual and potential conflicts of interest and biases. While these recommendations are geared to DAs in New York, they are instructive for elected prosecutors all over the United States: Continue reading →

The Flawed and Flimsy Basis for the American Bar Association’s Opposition to Anonymous Company Reform

Posted on by
3

In last week’s post, I raised the question of why the American Bar Association (ABA), which represents the U.S. legal profession, so strenuously opposes even relatively modest measures to crack down on the use of anonymous companies for money laundering and other illicit purposes. In particular, the ABA has staked out a strong, uncompromising opposition to the bills on this topic currently under consideration in the U.S. House (the Counter Terrorism and Illicit Finance Act) and in the Senate (the TITLE Act). As I noted in my last post, the substance of the ABA’s objections (summarized in its letters here and here) appear, at least on their surface, unpersuasive as a matter of logic, unsupported by evidence, or both. This, coupled with the fact that many ABA members strongly disagree with the ABA’s official position on this issue, made me wonder how the ABA’s President and Government Affairs Office had come to take the position that they had.

After doing a bit more digging, and talking to several knowledgeable people, I have a tentative answer: The ABA’s opposition to the currently-pending anonymous company bills is based on an aggressive over-reading of a 15-year-old policy—a policy that many ABA members and ABA committees oppose but have not yet been able to change, due to the ABA’s cumbersome procedures and the resistance of a few influential factions within the organization.

Why does this matter? It matters because the ABA’s letters to Congress deliberately give the impression that the ABA speaks for its 400,000 members when it objects to these bills as against the interests of the legal profession and contrary to important values. But that impression is misleading. There may be people out there—including, perhaps, members of Congress and their aides—who are instinctively sympathetic to the anonymous company reforms in the pending bills, but who might waver, for substantive or political reasons, if they think that the American legal profession has made a considered, collective judgment that these sorts of reforms are undesirable. The ABA’s lobbying documents deliberately try to create that impression. But it’s not really true. The key document setting the policy—the one on which the ABA’s House of Delegates actually voted—was promulgated in 2003, hasn’t been reconsidered or updated by the House of Delegates since then, and doesn’t really apply to the currently-pending bills if one reads the document or the bills carefully.

I realize that’s a strong claim – one could read it as disputing the ABA President’s assertion, in her letters to Congress, that she speaks “on behalf of” the ABA and its membership in opposing these bills. And I could well be wrong, and remain open to correction and criticism. But here’s why I don’t think the ABA’s current lobbying position should be read as reflecting the collective judgment of the American legal profession on the TITLE Act or its House counterpart: Continue reading →

Guest Post: Berlusconi and Corruption, Stability and Change

Posted on by
1

Andrea Lorenzo Capussela, an independent researcher who worked on Kosovo and Moldova’s development, and has written on Kosovo and Italy’s political economy, contributes today’s guest post:

There has been some discussion on this blog, prompted by the discussion at last fall’s “Populist Plutocrats” conference, on how corrupt, wealthy politicians can successfully position themselves as populists. One of the leading examples of this seeming paradox is Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi. In a recent post, Matthew Stephenson built on conference remarks from Giovanni Orsina and Beppe Severgnini to suggest that Berlusconi succeeded in part through a “politics of absolution”—the idea that by suggesting to Italian voters that “Italians are fine as they are, with all their vices, and need not change,” Berlusconi secured the support of many ordinary Italians who may themselves have bent or broken the rules, and who as a result of Berlusconi implicitly forgiving them, were willing to support him and to overlook Berlusconi’s own (much larger) infractions.

But as Professor Stephenson points out, there’s still a puzzle here: Voters consistently claim that they dislike corruption, and sometimes they are willing to take to the streets in protest. Indeed, during the two years that preceded Berlusconi’s electoral victory of March 1994, Italy saw frequent and large anticorruption demonstrations. Moreover, the particularism, clientelism, tax evasion, and corruption that Berlusconi both implicitly forgave and further entrenched are likely detrimental to the interests of a vast share of Berlusconi’s own electorate. So why did this message, and this so-called “politics of absolution,” work in the Italian case?

The missing piece of the story, as I argue in my recent book, has to do with the disruptive effect of the Italian anticorruption investigations of the early 1990s, and the fact that despite the success of that campaign in rooting out corruption, it ultimately destabilized Italian politics without offering Italian citizens sufficient reason to believe that the system would change for the better. Berlusconi offered the reassurance of a return to the old ways of doing things—and since most voters expected that such a return was likely, it became a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Continue reading →

Why Does the American Bar Association Oppose Beneficial Ownership Transparency Reform?

Posted on by
10

Right around the same time that this post appears on the blog, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will be holding a hearing on “Beneficial Ownership: Fighting Illicit International Financial Networks Through Transparency.” The main focus of the hearing will be on a pending bill, the True Incorporation for Transparency for Law Enforcement Act (TITLE Act). That bill’s major provisions do two main things:

  • First, subject to certain limited exceptions, the Act would require that every applicant wishing to form a corporation or limited liability company (LLC) in a U.S. State must provide that State with information on the true or “beneficial” owners of the company—that is, the live human beings who actually exercise control over, and/or receive substantial economic benefits from, these entities—and to keep this information updated. This information could then be requested by a law enforcement or other government agency, or by a financial institution conducting due diligence on a customer. Those applicants who don’t have a U.S. passport or driver’s license who want to form a corporation or LLC would have to apply through a U.S.-based “formation agent”; this agent would be responsible for verifying, maintaining, and updating information on the identity of the legal entity’s beneficial owners.
  • Second, the bill would also subject these “formation agents” to certain anti-money laundering (AML) rules applicable to financial institutions, including the requirements for establishing AML programs and filing suspicious activity reports (SARs) with the Treasury Department. However, the TITLE Act expressly exempts attorneys and law firms from this provision—provided that the attorney or law firm uses a separate formation agent in the U.S. when helping a client form a corporation or LLC. (The idea, as I understand it, is that the bill would avoid putting attorneys in the position of potentially having to file SARs on their own clients—but in order to avail themselves of this exemption, an attorney helping a client form a corporation would have to retain a separate formation agent, and it would be this latter agent that would be subject to the AML rules. More on this in a moment.)

Compared to the more aggressive beneficial ownership transparency reforms touted by anticorruption/AML advocates, and adopted in some other countries, the proposed U.S. legislation is fairly mild—but it is still, as prior commentators on this blog have emphasized (here and here), a welcome step in the right direction. After all, while the U.S. record on fighting global corruption and international money laundering is good in some respects (Foreign Corrupt Practices Act enforcement and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative come to mind), when it comes to addressing the facilitators of corruption, such as corporate secrecy, the U.S. is a laggard (as illustrated by poor U.S. score on the Tax Justice Network’s 2018 “Financial Secrecy Index,” released last month). So it’s indeed encouraging that the TITLE Act, and its counterpart in the U.S House of Representatives (the less-cleverly-named “Counter Terrorism and Illicit Finance Act”) have received both bipartisan support and the endorsement of a wide range of interest groups—including not just anticorruption, AML, and tax justice advocacy groups, but also representatives of law enforcement, the finance industry and other business interests (here and here). Many are cautiously optimistic that some version of these bills might actually become law this year.

But some opposition remains. The sources of that opposition are, in some cases, predictable: the Chamber of Commerce, for example, opposes these reforms, as does FreedomWorks, the lobbying group sponsored by the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers. One of the major opponents of the legislation, though, was more surprising, at least to me: the American Bar Association (ABA), which represents the U.S. legal profession. The ABA has come strongly against this legislation, sending letters to the responsible committees in both the House and Senate expressing strong opposition to even these relatively mild reforms.

What’s the explanation for this uncompromising opposition? Do the objections make sense on the merits? How did the ABA decide to take such a strong stand, despite the fact that I’m sure many ABA members support greater beneficial ownership transparency? I don’t know the answers to any of these questions yet, and I may try to do a few more posts over this month as I try to work through these issues. But for now, let me offer some preliminary thoughts: Continue reading →

Tracking Corruption and Conflicts of Interest in the Trump Administration–February 2018 Update

Posted on by
Reply

Last May, we launched our project to track credible allegations that President Trump, as well as his family members and close associates, are seeking to use the presidency to advance their personal financial interests.Just as President Trump’s son Eric will be providing President Trump with “quarterly” updates on the Trump Organization’s business affairs, we will do our best to provide readers with regular updates on credible allegations of presidential profiteering. Our February 2018 update is now available here.

A few highlights from the most recent update:

  • Some end-of-first year statistics:
    • During his first year in office, President Trump spent 121 days (approximately one-third of his presidency) at properties owned by the Trump Organization.
    • Trump hotels and resorts earned more than $1.2 million from bookings by Republican political groups in 2017, despite having earned less than $100,000 per year from these groups in the previous 15 years.
    • On at least 35 separate occasions, members of the Trump Administration used the government platform to promote the Trump brand.
    • Trump Organization companies sold $35 million worth of real estate in 2017, mostly to secretive buyers making the purchases through anonymous shell companies. Prior to Trump’s winning the Republican nomination, fewer than 4% of Trump Organization real estate sales were to secret buyers using this tactic. Since President Trump won the nomination, that number has jumped to 70%, and stayed there throughout his first year in office.
  • The Administration recently waived sanctions against several criminally-convicted banks–sanctions that would have barred these banks from managing pension funds and individual retirement accounts. While the grant of such waivers is not unusual, some expressed concern that one of the banks granted the waiver, Deutsche Bank, has lent President Trump billions of dollars, and also provided sizable loans to Jared Kushner, raising at least the appearance of a possible conflict of interest.
  • While many coastal states applied for exemptions from the Trump Administration’s decision to lift prohibitions on offshore drilling, the Administration granted only one exemption–for Florida. The Administration has not been able to offer a coherent explanation as to why Florida is differently situated from other states, such as California, leading many to speculate that the exemption was granted in part for political reasons (the Florida Governor is a Republican), and in part because of the Trump family’s personal financial interest in protecting Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.
  • Shortly before President Trump and Jared Kushner made their first diplomatic trip to Israel, one of Israel’s largest financial institutions made a $30 million investment in the Kushner family’s real estate company, raising questions about whether the financial ties between Kushner and Israel might skew his diplomatic priorities and strategy.
  • A Trump Tower project in India is apparently attempting to attract buyers by advertising that the first 100 people who purchase units will be able to have a meet-and-greet with Donald Trump, Jr.

As always, we note that while we try to include only those allegations that appear credible, we acknowledge that many of the allegations that we discuss are speculative and/or contested. We also do not attempt a full analysis of the laws and regulations that may or may not have been broken if the allegations are true. For an overview of some of the relevant federal laws and regulations that might apply to some of the alleged problematic conduct, see here.

Corruption Discussion on “The Scholars’ Circle”

Posted on by
3

Last summer UCLA Professor Miriam Golden and I did a radio interview on political corruption for a program called The Scholars’ Circle, hosted by Maria Armoudian. I just learned that a recording of the program is available online, and I thought it might be of interest to some readers of this blog. The recording can be found here; the discussion about corruption begins at 17:16.

The relatively brief but wide-ranging discussion, skillfully moderated by Ms. Armoudian, touches on five major issues (issues that we’ve also covered on this blog):

  • How should we define corruption, and how can we try to measure it? (at 18:11-26:31 on the recording)
  • Possible factors that might contribute to the level of corruption, including economic development, governance systems (democracy v. autocracy), social norms, and culture (26:32-32:41)
  • Whether and how countries can make the transition from a state of endemic corruption to a state of manageable/limited corruption—as well as the risk of backsliding (32:52-47:32)
  • What will the impact of the Trump Administration be on corruption, and on norms of integrity and the rule of law, in the United States? (47:42-52:02)
  • What are some of the main remedies that can help make a system less corrupt? (52:03-56:34)

There’s obviously a limit to how deep one can go in a format like this, and the program is geared toward a non-specialist audience, but I hope some readers find the conversation useful in stimulating more thinking on the topics we covered. Thanks for listening!

Guest Post: Global Forum or Global Farce on Asset Recovery?

Posted on by
2

GAB is delighted to welcome back Susan Hawley, Policy Director at Corruption Watch, to contribute today’s guest post:

The global record on recovering assets looted from public treasuries is not good. The World Bank and UNODC estimate that between $20-40 billion is stolen each year. Between 2006 and 2012, $2.6 billion stolen assets were frozen in so-called “destination” countries, and $423.5 million was returned. That means of the roughly $120 billion (taking the lowest end of the World Bank and UNODC’s estimate) thought to have been potentially looted globally in that 6 year period, only 0.3% was actually recovered.

To strengthen international efforts to combat this problem, the 2016 London Anti-Corruption Summit called for the creation of a Global Forum on Asset Recovery (GFAR); the World Bank and UNODC’s Stolen Asset Recovery Initiative organized the inaugural Global Forum on Asset Recovery (GFAR), in December 2017 in Washington, D.C., with the US and UK governments as co-hosts. The GFAR, which welcomed over 300 participants from 26 jurisdictions, focused on four countries: Nigeria, (thought to have to have lost $32 billion to corruption under previous President Goodluck Jonathan); Sri Lanka (where former President Rajapaksa allegedly stole up to $5.38 billion); Tunisia (where former ruler Ben Ali and his family are thought to have amassed wealth of over $13 billion); and Ukraine (where former president Yanukovych and his associates are thought to have stolen around $7.5 billion). These countries were selected for their political will to recover stolen assets and the considerable assets they have to recover.

The stated objectives for the GFAR were “progress on cases achieved by the four focus countries, increased capacity through technical sessions, renewed commitment to advancing asset recovery cases, and increased collaboration among involved jurisdictions.” As measured against these objectives, was the GFAR a success? Should it be a regular event? More generally, do asset recovery forums like this have sufficient positive impact to justify their cost? Continue reading →

The Dismissal of the CREW v. Trump Emoluments Lawsuit: Some Quick Reactions

Posted on by
4

As those who follow the debates swirling around President Trump’s extensive conflicts-of-interests are likely aware, last month a United States District Court dismissed, on jurisdictional grounds, a lawsuit asserting that President Trump’s business interests put him in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s foreign and domestic Emoluments Clauses. The opinion came down over a month ago, but I was traveling at the time and didn’t have a chance to read it until recently. There was plenty of informed commentary in the immediate wake of the decision (see, for example, here, here, here, and here), and I recognize that further discussion may not be that useful. But since I had posted several times about the case last year, I thought it might be worth saying a few words about what we might take away from the opinion and its impact.

For those whose memory of the details of the case is a bit fuzzy, a brief recap: The Foreign Emoluments Clause prohibits any official of the U.S. government from accepting any “present [or] emolument” from a foreign government, while the Domestic Emoluments Clause prohibits the U.S. President from receiving any “emolument” from the U.S. government or any state government during his or her term of office. The Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington (CREW) filed a lawsuit asserting that President Trump was in violation of both clauses. The complaint alleged that several of Trump’s businesses—from which he did not divest—solicited and received the patronage of foreign governments, in contravention of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, and that Trump companies had received business and/or benefits from both federal and state government entities, thereby offending the Domestic Emoluments Clause. The CREW suit, which was later joined by several co-plaintiffs who compete economically with Trump hotels and restaurants, asked the court to enjoin President Trump from continued or future violations of the Emoluments Clauses, and to order him to release his financial records in order to be sure that no such violations took place.

I’m sympathetic to CREW’s arguments on the merits (though I recognize that there are important arguments on the other side, which I admit I haven’t fully worked through – see here and here). But I feared that the lawsuit was likely to be dismissed—not on the merits, but on the grounds that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. Indeed, I thought such a dismissal was almost certain. I also fretted that CREW’s decision to bring the case might be a serious strategic error: My worry was that the near-inevitable dismissal of the suit on jurisdictional grounds would give most of the public the misleading impression that the underlying claims of improper behavior were meritless, and that pro-Trump media outlets would foster that misimpression, with the net result that concern about Trump’s conflicts of interest would dissipate rather than intensify. My concerns somewhat but not fully abated when the additional plaintiffs (competing restaurants, hotels, and their employees) joined the suit. I thought that these additional plaintiffs, unlike CREW itself, were more likely to have “standing” (one of the requirements for the court to have jurisdiction), but that other jurisdictional problems might still stop the court from reaching and deciding the question whether President Trump is in violation of the Constitution.

So, now that the decision is out, what should we think of it, and what can we learn from it? My own reaction is, perhaps, a bit paradoxical: After reading the opinion and the subsequent commentary and news coverage, I’m even more convinced than I was before that this lawsuit and others like it will be dismissed on jurisdictional grounds, but I’m less concerned that pursuing these suits is a strategic mistake (though there are still questions about whether it’s a worthwhile use of scarce advocacy resources, or of the court system). Continue reading →

Anticorruption Bibliography–January 2018 Update

Posted on by
Reply

An updated version of my anticorruption bibliography is available from my faculty webpage. A direct link to the pdf of the full bibliography is here, and a list of the new sources added in this update is here. As always, I welcome suggestions for other sources that are not yet included, including any papers GAB readers have written.