Category Archives: Commentary

An Assessment of the Swiss Return of Stolen Assets to Uzbekistan

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The return of assets stolen by corrupt means is “a fundamental principle” of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, and the Convention mandates that its now 191 state parties “afford one another the widest measure of cooperation and assistance” to ensure states victimized by corruption recover the proceeds of the crime wherever they are located (article 51).

Easy enough to state the principle. And easy enough to implement where the victim state’s leaders are democratically chosen, committed to advancing citizens’ well-being, and corruption is under control. But what if those conditions don’t hold? What if the same kleptocrats who stole the assets are still in power? Even if the crooks have been purged, so long as autocrats run the government, what guarantee is there that the assets won’t simply enrich the current powerholders? Or worse yet, fund measure to further repress their citizens?

As my friend and former Soros Foundation colleague Alisher Ilkhamov describes in the current issue of Central Asian Due Diligence (here), Switzerland is working through these issues as it begins to return to Uzbekistan the several hundred million dollars the former president’s daughter Gulnara Karimova stole. Uzbekistan’s government is a step above where it was when Gulnara set the record for shaking down foreign investors, but a budding democracy it is not. By a long shot.

Alisher describes the conditions Switzerland attached to the return of a first tranche of $131 million in 2022, how they were implemented, and how that experience should inform the recent agreement between Switzerland and Uzbekistan to return another $182 million. His assessment will be of value to policymakers everywhere wrestling with the return of stolen assets to states that fall far short of democratic, good governance norms.

Who Will Defend the FCPA?

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Last month President Trump ordered Attorney General Bondi to “cease initiation of any new FCPA investigations or enforcement actions” while she determines whether the way the act is now enforced advances American interests. If she finds it is not, the Presidential Executive Order directs her to revise the current enforcement guidelines. In theory any revision will be driven by what an objective review finds; in fact Trump’s February 10 order has loaded the dice. It starts off proclaiming FCPA enforcement:

“has been systematically, and to an increasing degree, stretched beyond proper bounds and abused in a manner that harms the interests of the United States”

It continues:

“Overexpansive and unpredictable FCPA enforcement against American citizens and businesses … for routine business practices in other nations … wastes limited prosecutorial resources [and] actively harms American economic competitiveness.

These claims are patently false — as those who have watched the uptick in FCPA prosecutions or been involved in them know.  They must now speak up: To prevent Trump and Bondi from derailing one of the most successful efforts to fight global corruption since the international community made it a priority.

The list of witnesses is long. It includes not only American executives, lawyers, FBI investigators and federal prosecutors but the counterparts in countries rich and poor who have worked with them to curb the scourge of bribery. They need to present the “true facts” to Attorney General Bondi to counter the “alternate facts” in the Trump order.

Already two former OECD General Counsels and three former chairs of its Working Group on Bribery have. In a February letter to Bondi they explain that the FCPA has advanced American interests by protecting “US companies from unfair practices by foreign companies” and they go on to provide additional evidence and reasons why FCPA enforcement policy requires little if any revision. Others need to go on record with stories of how and where enforcement measures helped American businesses and created good will for American interests generally.

Given Bondi’s unwavering fealty to Trump, the real facts are unlikely to stand in the way of her making drastic changes in FCPA enforcement, but changes will be subject to challenge in both a court of law and the court of public opinion. The more evidence on the record that that current enforcement policy advances American interests, the more likely any misguided revisions will be rejected.

Bondi has until August 9 to complete her review with the possibility of a 180 day extension. The sooner the true facts are on the record and the alternate ones revealed as half-truths existing in an alternate universe, the better. Submissions should be addressed to: The Honorable Pamela Bondi with the salutation Dear Attorney General Bondi: Her address:

  •  950 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W.
  •  Washington, D.C. 20530

GAB would be pleased to receive and share with readers copies of any submission.

Will the Outgoing Namibian President Pardon the Fishrot Defendants?

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On August 4 two former Namibian ministers, other once high-ranking government officials, and their accomplices go on trial for stealing millions of dollars from Namibian citizens. Unless, that is, President Nangolo Mbumba pardons them before leaving office March 20.

The pardon would not only subvert the rule of law but indelibly tarnish ruling party SWAPO’s legacy. 

SWAPO, the South West Africa People’s Organization, began life fighting to free Namibians from the grip of apartheid South Africa. Since securing Namibia’s independence in 1990, the party has won the respect of democracy advocates everywhere. In contrast to Mozambique’s FRELIMO and Angola’s MPLA, it has begun the transition from a tightly disciplined, brook-no-opposition guerilla army to a broad-based political party.

SWAPO is not all the way there yet, but seeing that senior party members are held accountable for taking bribes in Fishrot, where Icelandic fishing giant Samerherji paid defendants and possibly other SWAPO members for the rights to fish off the Namibian coast, is surely a major stride forward. (Fishrot details here, here, here, here)

The trial could well put on display more of the party’s dirty laundry. Hence the reason why some in the party’s inner-circle are pressuring President Nangolo to pardon the crooks. Their argument: a pardon will clear the decks for incoming President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah to carry through on needed reforms without the distraction of Fishrot prosecutions. And Nangolo is retiring and so can take the political fall out from letting defendants off the hook.

The truth is the inner-circle’s real motive is nakedly self-serving. During the campaign, Nandi-Ndaitwah made her commitment to the rule of law crystal clear, virtually ensuring she will neither derail the prosecution nor lighten defendants’ sentences if, as expected, they are convicted. Indeed, some in SWAPO’s inner-circle fear she may countenance civil suits to force all those responsible for Fishrot, including those insiders pushing pardons, to compensate Fishrot victims for the tremendous harms the bribery caused them. (Damages fisherman suffered documented here and here.)

Will those among SWAPO’s founders committed to a liberal democratic, corruption-free future for Namibia join with the party’s younger, more progressive members to persuade President Mbumba to leave office honorably? To ensure that the efforts revered party founder Sam Nujoma and others have made to set SWAPO and Namibia on the democratic path continue?  

Road Quality Guarantees in Nigeria: An Anticorruption Approach Off the Beaten Path

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To say it is hard to get around in Nigeria is an understatement. Only about 30% of Nigeria’s roads are paved. And even the paved roads are in terrible condition, with crater-sized potholes, stagnant pools of water, floods of waste, and disintegrating tarmac. Everyday commuters, who often sit in traffic for up to five hours daily, regard Nigeria’s roads as “death traps,” “deplorable,” and “dilapidated.” The low quality of Nigeria’s roads not only increases insecurity but also poses a major impediment to economic progress.

The poor quality of roads is not the result of insufficient funding allocated for road construction. Indeed, the Nigerian government has spent enormous amounts of money on road construction projects (approximately $922.2 million just last year). If this money was going where it was supposed to go, Nigeria’s roads should at least be decent. But the money is not going where it’s supposed to go. Very often construction firms bribe public officials to secure road contracts, and then the firms recoup the loss of the bribe by using low quality materials and substandard construction methods, resulting in roads that do not last even up to seven years. In some cases, contractors simply pocket the government money and disappear, abandoning their projects but simply pocket the government money and disappear. To take an especially high profile example of how massive road projects can be tainted by suspicions of corruption, a recent $13 billion highway project, commenced by President Tinubu in May 2024, was awarded—with no regard for a public bidding process—to a company of whose subsidiary Tinubu’s son is a director. In fact, Tinubu’s son owned an offshore company with the son of the tycoon who received the contract. (In 2000, that tycoon was convicted of money laundering and helping the Abacha regime siphon at least $120 million from the Central Bank of Nigeria.) This road project has been criticized for its lack of transparency, alleged fraud, and risk of noncompletion.

In short, corruption is one of the most significant reasons for Nigeria’s terrible road system. But the most effective way to improve road quality in Nigeria is to focus not directly on the corruption—even though that is the root cause of the problem. Of course, corrupt acts, in this context and others, should be caught and punished. But, rather than relying primarily on detecting and punishing corruption, the more effective way to address this problem would be to establish effective mechanisms to hold contractors and public officials accountable for the quality of the roads that are ultimately built. Enforcing performance standards will reduce incentives to engage in corruption—at least the sorts of corruption that have a significant adverse impact on quality.

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The UK’s Failure-to-Prevent-Bribery Offense Has Succeeded in Preventing Bribery

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The UK Bribery Act 2010 has been widely heralded as “the gold standard” of anti-bribery laws, an “exemplary” statute that is “a lodestar for other countries.” That the UK is now seen as a “world leader” in the fight against foreign bribery, after years of being seen as a laggard, is due in no small part to UK Bribery Act’s most innovative aspect: the failure to prevent bribery offense under section 7. This section makes commercial organizations doing business in the UK criminally liable if they fail to prevent a person associated with their organization from bribing another for the purpose of obtaining or retaining an advantage for the organization. “Associated” persons are defined broadly as including anyone who performs services on behalf of the organization, including employees, contractors and agents. But companies can avoid liability for failure to prevent bribery if they can show that they had adopted “adequate procedures” to prevent such wrongdoing. This feature of the Act has received growing international endorsement. Numerous jurisdictions have adopted similar provisions (e.g. Australia, Kenya, Bermuda, Ireland, South Africa) or are considering doing so (New Zealand, Canada, Hong Kong). Moreover, within the UK itself, this failure to prevent framework has been expanded to contexts such as tax evasion and fraud offenses, and is also being considered for tackling human rights harms, mistreatment of vulnerable persons and computer misuse offenses.

Yet despite such widespread praise, section 7, and the UK Bribery Act more generally, have their detractors. The main criticisms tend to fall into two categories. First, some have argued that section 7 has not been as effective in changing corporate behavior as might have reasonably been expected. Second, some have argued that section 7’s “adequate procedures” defense is too vague. Both of these criticisms are overstated. Continue reading →

Supreme Court Likely to Ok Trump’s Firing of Whistleblower Protection Agency Head — But

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Anticorruption activists will almost certainly soon awake to more bad news about the Trump Administration and corruption: A Supreme Court decision upholding the sacking of the official responsible for protecting government whistleblowers.

A Trump win at the Supreme Court is bad news, both in legal and public relations terms. But the anticorruption community and those worried about Trump’s abuse of executive power should temper their laments. Especially because their lamentations will amplify the PR value of the win.

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U.S. Prosecutors Resign Rather Than Obey Order to Drop Corruption Charges

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Corruption fighters around the world are surely appalled at the Trump Administration’ s latest strike against the rule of law. And certainly heartened by the refusal of both politically-appointed and career prosecutors to be complicit.

On February 10 Acting Deputy Attorney General Emile Bove ordered federal prosecutor Danielle Sassoon to dismiss bribery charges pending against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Sassoon, a Trump appointee, resigned in protest.  Bove then went down a list of career prosecutors hunting for someone who would obey his order. At last count seven had also resigned rather than carry out the order. Details on the still developing story from open sources are here, here, and here.

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Judicial Elections Will Worsen, Not Alleviate, Mexico’s Judicial Corruption Problem

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Mexico recently passed sweeping judicial reforms. These reforms, which are to be phased in between 2025 and 2027, include various elements including a relaxation of the required qualifications for judicial service, shorter tenures, reduced salaries, and new oversight bodies. But by far the most consequential change is the introduction of judicial elections, which will make Mexico the first country to directly elect almost all its judges. (The elections will not be fully open, however, as the slate of candidates for each judicial position will be determined by evaluation committees, subject to veto of particular candidates by the executive, the legislature, and the judiciary.) Although proponents advanced many arguments in favor of this “high-stakes experiment,” anticorruption featured prominently. Indeed, the introduction of judicial elections was championed by former President López Obrador and his Morena party as a way to rid the Mexican judiciary of corruption by making judges responsive to the people, rather than big business or organized crime.

Judicial corruption is indeed a serious problem in Mexico. Bribery is commonplace in local and state courts, and also occurs, though not as frequently, in federal courts. Reportedly, large tax cases “get decided with a phone call or bag of money,” while the outcomes of criminal cases are often manipulated through “a combination of both fear and bribery.” But introducing judicial elections is unlikely to ”cleanse the judicial system of corruption”, and may actually make the corruption problem worse: Continue reading →

TI USA: Attorney General’s Memorandum Redirecting U.S. Anti-Corruption Efforts Raises Questions and Concerns

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Below is the statement TI US released today in response to Attorney General Bondi’s Memorandum directing federal prosecutors “to shift focus away from FCPA and FEPA investigations that do not involve” criminal cartels and transnational crime and disbanding DoJ’s KleptoCapture Task Force and Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative. Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act has enjoyed broad, bipartisan support. Congress passed the Federal Extortion Prevention Act by a wide margin and has regularly approved funding for the KleptoCapture Task Force and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative. GAB shares TI USA’s concerns about the Attorney General’s Memorandum and hopes she will reconsider it as supporters in Congress, the business community, and the anticorruption community make their concerns known.

Washington, DC—On February 5, 2025, Attorney General Pam Bondi circulated a Memorandum to U.S. Justice Department employees with the subject heading “Total Elimination of Cartels and Transnational Criminal Organizations.”

The Memorandum explains the outlined changes as a step toward implementing President Trump’s January 20, 2025, Executive Order entitled “Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists.”

Among the changes are directives to (1) eliminate the KleptoCapture Task Force and the Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative (KARI); (2) prioritize Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA) investigations that are related to foreign bribery that facilitates the criminal operations of cartels and transnational criminal organizations (TCOs); (3) shift focus away from FCPA and FEPA investigations and cases that do not involve such a connection; and (3) remove the “bureaucratic impediment” requiring that investigations and prosecutions under the FCPA or FEPA regarding foreign bribery associated with cartels and TCOs first be authorized by, as well as conducted solely by, the Criminal Division and the Fraud Section, respectively, of the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C.

Transparency International U.S Executive Director Gary Kalman issued the following statement:

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The Age of Opacity: Reviving India’s Right to Information Act

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Nearly five years ago, Inayat Sabhikhi’s post on this blog praised India’s Right to Information Act (RTIA) —which mandates public authorities to respond in a timely fashion to citizen requests for information—as a “remarkably effective anticorruption tool.” In contrast, last year the Supreme Court of India warned that the Act was “fast becoming a ‘dead letter law.’” What can be done to revitalize the RTIA? An important part of the answer lies in centering the rural poor—increasing awareness, affordability, and accessibility to the RTIA in India’s villages.

Given that many of the RTIA’s most lauded exposés have involved urban political corruption (see here, here, and here), it is sometimes forgotten that the law was fundamentally enacted so as to empower marginalized communities in rural India. In fact, the RTIA owes its existence to the collective efforts of activists who, throughout the 1990s, successfully campaigned to uncover local employment records to ensure fair compensation for small farmers. The RTIA’s promise in exposing rural corruption is illustrated in two cases that occurred shortly after the Act’s passage in 2005:

  • In 2007, farmers in the state of Assam leveraged the RTIA to reveal irregularities in the operation of the public system for distributing food to people living below the poverty. A further investigation revealed that local officials had diverted the rice to themselves, selling it on the black market at a sevenfold price increase.
  • In 2008, activists in the state of Punjab submitted RTIA applications to understand why federal money earmarked to build rural housing had not been distributed to the intended beneficiaries. As the requested reports indicated, the grants had been embezzled by village council members, who built houses for themselves. 

While these examples demonstrate that the RTIA’s potential to give rural citizens greater ability to hold local elites accountable, such examples are the exception rather than the rule. Although corruption is rampant in rural India (see here, here, here, and here), RTI requests in villages are all too rare. While 70% of India’s population lives in rural areas, barely 25% of RTI applications come from villages, and in some states that percentage is as low as 11%. In short, the communities with the most to gain from the RTIA are the ones that have used it the least.

Two reforms would help address this problem: 

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