Category Archives: Commentary

AMLO Cannot Put a “Final Period” in Mexico’s History of Corruption Without Addressing the Past

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The trial and conviction of the notorious drug lord “El Chapo” has shed new light on the rampant corruption that exists at even the highest levels of the Mexican government. To take just a couple of the most startling examples: During the trial, a witness testified that Mexico’s former president Enrique Peña Nieto accepted a $100 million bribe from El Chapo, while another cartel member testified that he paid at least $3 million dollars to the Public Security Secretary of former president Felipe Calderon and at least $6 million dollars to President Calderon’s head of police. In other countries these accusations would have shaken citizens to their very core. But in Mexico, long perceived as one of the world’s most corrupt countries, citizens have sadly grown accustomed to allegations of this nature, and the revelations from the El Chapo trial were met with little more than a shrug.

That doesn’t mean that Mexicans don’t care about corruption. Quite the opposite. Indeed, frustration at this flagrant culture of corruption was one of the key factors that helped Mexico’s new president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), to capture his constituents’ faith and votes. AMLO has promised to eradicate corruption through a “Fourth Transformation” of Mexico (the previous three were Mexico’s independence from Spain, the liberal reforms of the 1850s, and the 1910-1917 revolution). Yet despite these sweeping promises, AMLO has decided not to investigate the allegations against his predecessors that have emerged in the El Chapo trial. In fact, AMLO’s stance has been not to prosecute any officials for corruption that took place in the past, before he took office. (AMLO has wavered on this position—though only slightly—after receiving backlash during his campaign; he has since stated he would prosecute past corruption offenses only if the administration has no choice due to “internal pressure” from citizens.) AMLO has justified his opposition to investigations and prosecutions of past corruption crimes by using the language suggesting the need for a fresh start. He speaks of a need to put a “final period” on Mexico’s history of corruption, and to “start over” by not focusing the past.

But how can one eradicate corruption by granting numerous “Get Out of Jail Free” cards? AMLO’s support of a de facto amnesty for corrupt ex-Mexican officials’ casts doubt on the seriousness of his pledge to eradicate corruption. Rather than simply saying that it’s time to turn over a new leaf, AMLO should demand accountability for grand corruption, and he should start by ordering a full independent investigation into the veracity of the corruption allegations that came to light during the El Chapo trial. Continue reading →

Reasons for Optimism About Latin America’s Wave of Anticorruption Prosecutions: A Response to Professor Balan

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What are we to make of the ongoing wave of corruption prosecutions sweeping Latin America in the wake of the Odebrecht scandal? Many are optimistic that these prosecutions, several of which have implicated very senior political figures, including current and former presidents, signal a turning point for the region. But in a guest post last September, Professor Manuel Balan suggested that this optimism may be misplaced, for three reasons. First, he argued that the enforcement patterns suggest that anticorruption prosecutions are becoming a weaponized—that these prosecutions are being used as a political tool used to bring down opponents, and consequently they lack credibility with much of the public. Second, Professor Balan questioned whether these prosecutions would ultimately be successful in holding powerful, popular wrongdoers accountable, and he argued that these prosecutions will just take down leaders whose positions have weakened for other reasons (such as Dilma Rousseff in Brazil). Third, Professor Balan worried that these prosecutions show that judicial power is increasing at the expense of citizens’ power—that they represent an erosion of “vertical accountability.”

I remain one of the optimists. Indeed, I think that Professor Balan is far too pessimistic about the role that the current anticorruption prosecutions in Latin American can play—and to some extent have already played—in addressing the region’s longstanding corruption and impunity problems. Yet his three objections are worth taking seriously and deserve a direct response. Here’s why I don’t find any of them sufficiently persuasive to share his pessimism:

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Reforming Procurement Processes: It’s About More than Law

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Last week’s post explained why some Latin American nations’ crackdown on corruption was doing more harm than good.  The law in these countries gives government no choice but to terminate a public contract whenever corruption is detected. Canceling a contract just after the winning bidder has been selected, before the winner has started work, is one thing.  It is quite another to bring the construction of a power plant or road to a screeching halt mid-way through the project. Mandatory termination in these cases can impose enormous costs on those who had nothing to do with the corruption, not least of which are taxpayers stuck with a half-built project.

The post was based a recent Inter-American Development Bank staff paper. The authors showed how costly mandatory termination laws have been in Peru and Colombia and described how several Latin governments were searching for alternatives to address corruption when it is found to have tainted a public contract now underway.  As policymakers do, let’s hope they consider more than just reforming their procurement law. For as Argentine lawyer and law professor Hector Mairal writes in a first-rate analysis of what ails Argentina’s procurement law, law is but one piece of the procurement equation. Continue reading →

The Romanian Government Opposes the Appointment of Laura Codruta Kovesi as European Public Prosecutor. That’s Why She Should Get the Job.

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There’s so much bad news in the anticorruption world these days that it’s hard to keep up. But I’ve recently been reading up on the ongoing debates in Europe over the selection of the first European Public Prosecutor, and I think this issue deserves some discussion, and even more attention from the anticorruption community in Europe and around the world.

Here’s the quick background for those who aren’t familiar with this issue: Back in 2017, 20 EU Member States agreed to create a new institution called the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO), headed by a European Public Prosecutor, with authority to investigate and prosecute (in national courts) offenses connected to the EU’s financial interests, such as fraud or embezzlement involving EU funds. (22 EU countries have now agreed to participate in the EPPO system.) The EPPO is scheduled to begin operations in late 2020 or early 2021, and the EU is in the process of selecting the first EPPO head. The three finalists are a Jean-Francois Bohnert of France, Andres Ritter of Germany, and Laura Corduta Kovesi from Romania. Ms. Kovesi had been considered a frontrunner, and still might secure the post, but her candidacy is under attack from her own government. Indeed, it seems that intense lobbying against her by the Romanian government is what led the Committee of Permanent Representatives in the European Union to back Bohnert for the job, though the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs voted to support Kovesi. The selection process is still ongoing, and it’s not clear when a final decision will be made. For those getting cold feet about Kovesi, though, it seems that the opposition of her home government is a significant reason.

In my view that’s not only wrong, but backwards. The Romanian government’s no-holds-barred, all-out attack on Kovesi is one of the best arguments for appointing her. I don’t know enough about the candidates to have a considered view of which of them, all else equal, would do the best job heading the EPPO, but assuming that they are all basically well-qualified, the Romanian ruling party’s panic over the prospect that Kovesi might get the job is exactly why she should be appointed, for two reasons:

  • First, the fact that government of one of the most corrupt countries in the EU—one with the greatest theft and misappropriation of EU funds—is terrified that Kovesi might get the job, but apparently fine with either of the other two choices, is strong evidence that she’ll be more effective. After all, if we were selecting the city police chief, and we found out that the local mafia boss strongly objected to candidate A, but was fine with candidates B and C, that seems like a point in candidate A’s favor, not a strike against her. (And if you think it’s unfair to compare the government of an EU member state to an organized crime family, well, read on.)
  • Second, the Romanian government is conducting a fairly blatant attempt to misuse its justice system in order to interfere with an EU decision process, in the context of a corrupt and increasingly illiberal ruling party. The EU is already struggling to deal with backsliding in Hungary and Poland, and it needs to show that it won’t be bullied or manipulated, and that if Member States want to be treated as good EU citizens, they need to comport with basic norms.

Now, given that I just made those statements with what sounds like great confidence, and the rest of this post may adopt a similarly confident tone, I should immediately add the caveat that I am not an expert on Romania, I’ve never been there, I don’t speak the language, and all I know about the situation, as the old saying goes, is what I read in the papers. So if you want to say I don’t know what I’m talking about, fair enough, you have a point. But I’ve been reading a lot about this, and what I’ve read seems both sufficiently scary, and sufficiently clear, to merit comment. Moreover, I think the Romanian government’s strategy relies in part on non-experts feeling like they don’t really understand what’s going on, so that it starts to feel like that, in the face of conflicting narratives (a sort of he said/she said), it’s best just to avoid controversy by supporting a “safe” choice for EPPO head. We’ve got to resist that impulse. Appointing someone other than Kovesi may seem like the safe choice, but that’s exactly why Kovesi is the right choice. Continue reading →

Passports for Sale: Why We Should Worry about Golden Visa Programs

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In 1984, the government of the small Caribbean island state of Saint Kitts and Nevis had a bright idea for attracting foreign capital: the country would grant permanent resident status to any foreign national who invested a sufficient amount in the country. The idea caught on, and now dozens of countries around the world—including not only small island states, but also major developed economies like the United States and the United Kingdom—have so-called “golden visa” programs. Golden visa programs have proven especially attractive during times of economic hardship, as demonstrated by the spread of these programs across Europe in the wake of the 2008 recession. These European programs are especially notable, as getting a visa in one country in the Schengen visa zone provides access to the other 25 as well. Some states—including EU members Austria, Bulgaria, Cyprus, and Malta—even offer investors outright citizenship, rather than simply residency status, in exchange for sufficiently large investments. And due to pre-existing visa waiver agreements, these “golden passports” may allow access to other countries as well. Those with Maltese passports, for example, can travel to the US visa-free.

According to a recent Transparency International-Global Witness report, in the last decade alone, countries with these sorts of programs have “sold” (that is, traded for investment) more than 6,000 passports and nearly 100,000 residency permits. Yet these policies have always been controversial, and are becoming more so. Canada terminated its golden visa program in 2014 (though it continues in Quebec). Last June, the Trump Administration demanded that Congress either terminate or reform the US investor visa program. And the UK abruptly announced it would suspend its program on December 6th, although it reversed course six days later.

Part of the reason for the growing disillusionment with golden visa programs is that their supposed economic benefits haven’t lived up to expectations. Rather than stimulate economic growth and job creation, the investments used to qualify for golden visas are often passive, such as government bonds or real estate. In Portugal, for example, 95% of total investment has been in real estate—6,141 investments compared to just 12 in employment creation. Real estate investments not only offer limited benefits, but may also distort housing markets. In the US, investments have been, in the words of US Senator Chuck Grassley, funneled towards “big moneyed Manhattan interests” rather than “direct investment to rural and high unemployment areas.” Hungary even managed to lose money on its program—$221 million—as it offered investors discounted bonds that were then fully repaid after five years with an additional 2% interest.

But the bigger problem with golden visa programs is their potential to both facilitate and stimulate corruption and money laundering. This problem, which was highlighted both by the TI-Global Witness report mentioned above, as well as another report from the European Commission, takes several forms. Continue reading →

Proposed US Legislation Can Solve the Art World’s Money Laundering Problem

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The plan was simple: a wealthy client wishing to launder the proceeds of a stock manipulation scheme could do so through a Picasso painting. His accomplice would be Matthew Green, the owner of a prominent London art gallery and son of one of London’s most powerful art dealers. The client would purchase the painting using the illegal proceeds, own the painting for some time to avoid suspicion, and then sell the painting back to Green, who would transfer the original payment back to the client through a US bank—to “clean the money.” It was completely foolproof, except that the client turned out to be an undercover FBI agent.

Why a painting to launder the money? Because the art business is impenetrable by outsiders: it’s a world limited to highbrow art connoisseurs, dealers, and wealthy collectors, where the prices are whatever they want them to be. Here, $9.2 million, although the painting failed to sell at a much lower price estimate years before. And as the defendants in the Green case explained to their client, the art business is “the only market that is unregulated” by the government. It seems that the players in the art world make up their own rules, unchecked by any authority, making this elusive quality of the business the perfect “hotbed” for corrupt activity.

In May 2018—possibly in response to the February 2018 indictment in this case—legislation was introduced in US Congress to tackle the money-laundering problem in the art business (previously described on this blog). The Illicit Art and Antiquities Trafficking Prevention Act (Act) would cover art and antiquities dealers under the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), which requires financial institutions and other regulated businesses to establish anti-money laundering programs, keep records of cash purchases, and report suspicious activity and transactions exceeding $10,000 to government regulators. This legislation has, perhaps unsurprisingly, been vigorously opposed by the art industry. But the objections to the proposal do not withstand scrutiny:

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The Consequences of Zero Tolerance

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The chart above shows what happens when policy is based on a slogan. In this case “Zero Tolerance.” Procurement rules in both Peru and Colombia require that any public contract tainted by corruption be terminated immediately. As the Brazilian investigation into construction giant Odebrecht unfolded, it became clear that many projects to build highways, power plants, and other infrastructure projects in the two countries had been corruptly awarded.  Authorities in both countries then did what the law told them they must: cancel the contracts.

Most large infrastructure contracts in Peru and Colombia are in the form of Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), and the immediate termination of a PPP can be enormously costly.  Not only to the firms that paid bribes to secure the contract, but to lenders, suppliers, and the hundreds of other contractors on the project who had no knowledge or involvement in the bribery scheme.  The greatest costs are likely be felt by the citizens of Colombia and Peru.  For as the chart shows, the consequence of zero tolerance is a halt to new spending for roads, power, and other essential facilities as investors and project developers shy away from the risk future contracts will be terminated for the tiniest of infractions by anyone associated with the project.   

Colombians and Peruvians may today be proud their governments are so tough on corruption neither one will tolerate a speck of it in any contract for infrastructure.  Tomorrow citizens of the two countries may have a different view: when power shortages mean the lights won’t come on and the failure to build new roads and maintain old ones produces horrendous traffic jams.  

Last week the World Bank hosted a presentation by Inter-American Development Bank staff where the issue of why “zero tolerance” is a good slogan but a bad policy was examined and means for addressing infrastructure corruption without producing the results shown in the chart was discussed.  A paper the IDB presenters recently published, the source of the figure above and the basis of their presentation, is here.   A video of the session here.  

The Bolsonaro Administration is Quietly Reducing Transparency in Brazil

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Right-wing populist Jair Bolsonaro was inaugurated President of Brazil on January 1, 2019. As a candidate, Bolsonaro promised that his regime would break with the large-scale graft of Brazil’s former leaders and would ruthlessly pursue the corrupt and bring them to justice. At the end of January, Justice Minister Sergio Moro released, with much fanfare and press attention, a sweeping anti-crime legislation package that addresses both white collar crime and violent organized crime, and that incorporates some, though not all, of the anticorruption measures proposed by Transparency International. So does this mean that the Bolsonaro Administration is following through on its promise to make the fight against corruption a major priority, and to end the culture of impunity that has shielded Brazilian political elites?

Alas, no. While the anti-crime package (and other high-profile pieces of legislation, like tax reform) have been highlighted by the administration and attracted most of the media attention, less prominent yet equally consequential pieces of legislation related to corruption are being passed with little to no warning or public debate. Here are two examples of major events that have occurred within the first month of the regime that should give anticorruption scholars and the international community pause in their evaluation of the Bolsonaro government’s fight against corruption:

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Kyrgyzstan’s Elimination of Immunity for Ex-Presidents is No Win for Anticorruption

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Last October, the Supreme Court of Kyrgyzstan ruled that Kyrgyzstan’s law granting legal immunity to ex-presidents was unconstitutional on the grounds that Article 16 of the Kyrgyz Constitution makes all people equal before the law. Because the Kyrgyz immunity law was one of the broadest and most protective in the world, those of us who care about corruption might cheer this ruling as a win in Kyrgyzstan’s fight against corruption. However, viewed in context, the ruling portends problems for Kyrgyzstan’s nascent democracy and may even be counterproductive in the fight against corruption itself.

Many countries have ex-presidential immunity regimes. The downside of such laws—which exist throughout Central Asia and in countries as diverse as Burundi, France, and Uruguay­—is that, by making it difficult or impossible to prosecute a former president, these laws eliminate one of the most important deterrents to executive corruption. Kyrgyzstan’s law was especially problematic in this respect, as the immunity granted to ex-presidents was unusually broad—covering not merely conduct related to the former president’s exercise of her or his official duties, but any act committed during the term of office, with no exceptions even for high treason or other grave crimes. The Kyrgyz immunity law also protected an ex-president’s property, and it blocked searches and interrogation in addition to prosecution, thus stymying investigations even where the ex-president was just a witness. For these reasons, getting rid of the immunity law might seem like a step forward in the fight against corruption.

However, laws that grant immunity to ex-presidents also have an upside, especially in authoritarian states or fragile democracies. These laws may ease and encourage peaceful political transitions, because with no threat of prosecution, a sitting president may be more willing to peacefully cede power. One might therefore be worried about the impact of the Supreme Court’s decision on Kyrgyzstan’s fledgling electoral democracy. Those worries would be well founded given the political context in which the Supreme Court rendered its decision.

To understand why requires understanding recent events in Kyrgyz politics, and in particular how the Supreme Court’s invalidation of the ex-presidential immunity law appears to be part of a larger campaign by the current President to suppress political opposition led by his predecessor:

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Swedish Court’s Stunning Acquittal of ex-Telia Executives for Bribery

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A Stockholm District Court’s acquittal of three former executives of Swedish telecom giant Telia of bribery shocked the global anticorruption community and has smirched Sweden’s reputation as a clean government champion (original decision; English translation).  Despite overwhelming evidence, the court refused to find the three guilty of paying Gulnara Karimova, daughter of the then president Uzbekistan, over $300 million in bribes for the right to operate in the country.

E-mails showed defendants directed the money to a Karimova shell company, hid their dealings with her from Telia’s board, and knew paying her violated American antibribery law. (Telia subsidiary’s Statement of Facts in the U.S. prosecution.)  Though defendants argued Karimova had no official role in telecom licensing, the evidence showed her father had given her de facto control of the telecom licensing agency.  Perhaps most damning, the court had the sworn statement Telia made in settling the FCPA case arising from the bribery. It there admitted “Executive A . . . a high-ranking executive of Telia who had authority over Telia’s Eurasian Business Area” and “certain Telia executives” had been the principals behind the bribery scheme (Statement of Facts,  ¶s 12, 17, 19, 26, 30, and 34).

The court defended its acquittal of Tero Kivisaari, apparently Telia “Executive A,” Lars Nyberg, CEO when the bribes were paid, and the lawyer who counseled them on two grounds. One, the prosecutor had not provided “hard evidence” of bribery, and two, even if he had, the law then in effect did not reach defendants’ conduct.

Google’s translation of the decision is rough (mutanklagelser, Swedish for bribery, is rendered as “manslaughter”) but not too rough to see through the court’s skewed findings of fact and flimsy legal reasoning. Continue reading →