Guest Post: Embracing and Enhancing IMF’s Governance Conditionalities To Fight Corruption

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Today’s guest post is from Beauty Emefa Narteh, the Executive Secretary at the Ghana Anti-Corruption Coalition, and Leslie Tsai, General Counsel at the Chandler Foundation and lead for the organization’s efforts to support good governance, increased transparency and accountability, and robust international and national integrity ecosystems

 IMF bailouts of countries in financial distress often come with unpopular strings attached—strict conditionalities related to fiscal policy that often force countries to make deep spending cuts and to increase taxes on food, healthcare, and fuel. These painful austerity measures have often proved counterproductive, plunging countries into recession and sparking anti-government riots and protests.

But while IMF conditionalities have gotten a deservedly bad reputation, a relatively new category of IMF conditionalities, focused on governance reforms, presents the 3.3 billion people living in countries swept up in the current global debt crisis with something precious: hope and the possibility of a true pathway to financial stability. The IMF’s expanded the use of governance-related conditions is a based on a belated acknowledgement of a point that civil society leaders and anticorruption champions around the world have long emphasized: that governance issues are as macroeconomically critical as fiscal policy, and that when corruption bloats and distorts government spending, a narrow focus on economic policy alone will be insufficient to pull countries out of chronic economic crisis. Notably, the IMF’s governance conditionalities are far more popular among ordinary citizens than their standard austerity measures. This is not only because corruption is widely seen as a scourge that most heavily burdens the poor, but also because anticorruption systems that protect government coffers can blunt the need for cuts to social spending over the long term.

The IMF’s governance conditionalities provide a powerful if imperfect tool for savvy civil society leaders who have long advocated for increased government accountability and stronger anticorruption systems. When governments are in discussions with the IMF about bailouts, domestic civil society groups in those countries can use this opportunity to press for much-needed progress on anticorruption. Continue reading →

Twelve Years Later, Did China’s Sweeping Anticorruption Campaign Deliver?

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When Xi Jinping rose to power as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, he kicked off a sweeping campaign to eliminate corruption across government. Xi vowed to discipline both “tigers” and “flies” — high-ranking party leaders and low-level bureaucrats — and warned officials of the risk that corruption posed to the government’s legitimacy. Official efforts to address corruption were hardly new in China, but Xi’s anticorruption drive was notable for its aggressive enforcement and willingness to pursue even the most powerful. Xi empowered and expanded the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the highest supervisory organ of the party, while also reorganizing the government to create a new National Supervisory Commission (NSC) that would unify the state’s anticorruption enforcement. Xi’s enforcers employed harsh rhetoric, seeking to deter corruption by strict enforcement. Twelve years later, millions of officials have been disciplined or purged, including top party figures such as former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai and former security minister Zhou Yongkang. Under China’s draconian criminal justice system, such defendants stand little chance. And private individuals have not been spared, with prominent industry and business leaders caught up in bribery and corruption investigations. On top of this sweeping crackdown, Xi has taken steps to permanently institutionalize anticorruption across the party and government.

In many respects, Xi has done much of what anticorruption practitioners advocate for: He has prioritized anticorruption at the highest level of government, increased enforcement dramatically, and reformed both government and political institutions. There are signs that his anticorruption efforts have paid off. Public perception of government has improved, with officials wary of ostentatious consumption of luxury goods and other openly corrupt behavior. Xi himself declared overwhelming victory in the fight against corruption in early 2024.

Yet despite the impressive numbers, Xi’s campaign has failed to address the underlying dynamics driving corruption in China. Indeed, the fact that anticorruption authorities continue to catch record-breaking numbers of corrupt officials at all levels of government may be a warning sign, not a marker of success. While Xi’s campaign is viewed in some quarters as a model for top-down, government-led anticorruption campaigns, China’s experience over the last dozen years also highlights the inherent limitations of that approach.

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The Fight Against Corruption Is at Stake in Milan

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That’s how former French magistrate and renowned corruption fighter Eva Joly sees current developments in Italy. Two prosecutors there face prison for actions taken during the bribery trial of Italy’s largest company.  Writing in the Argentine opinion journal Clarín, Mme. Joly explains that the charges have nothing to do with their conduct and everything to do with a justice system where score-settling and the protection of Italian companies has supplanted the goal of truth and justice (Spanish original here; English translation here).

The saga begins with prosecutors Fabio de Pasquale and Sergio Spadaro opening an investigation into allegations oil giants Shell and Eni paid a $1.1 billion bribe for rights to Nigerian oil field OPL 245. With overwhelming evidence of wrongdoing on the public record (here, here), the two expected they would be trying a cut-and-dried case of foreign bribery.

Even before the trial began, however, it was clear that that was not to be. The first signs: revelations of ties between the chief trial judge and a lawyer close to ENI together with a surprising lack of interest by the Italian press in the largest bribery scandal on record. During the trial, a string of rulings highly favorable to the defense heightened suspicions the fix was in. But the acquittal still came as a surprise given the massive evidence presented coupled with the flimsy reasoning the court advanced to justify its verdict (here).

Adding to the surprise was the Italian media’s new-found interest in the case. Stories claiming the trial had been a waste of public money and questioning what Italian prosecutors were doing prosecuting Italian companies for bribing foreign officials began appearing in several outlets, the same ones where ENI was a major ad buyer.

Not to risk an appellate court would undo their handy work, those behind the trial’s outcome saw to it that the state counsel appointed to appeal the acquittal was one whose public comments on the case tracked the criticisms in the press (here). She then took the extraordinary step of refusing to pursue an appeal, meaning the trial court’s acquittal remains the final word.

Those responsible for quashing one case against ENI apparently feared there was always a risk some other pesky prosecutor didn’t get the message. Hence the orchestration of the conviction of de Pasquale and Spadaro for failing to disclose exculpatory information to the defense, a case with no precedent in Italian law based on a factual claim belied by the trial record.

If the convictions are not overturned on appeal, it’s not only the future of two talented magistrates that will suffer. As Mme. Joly says, the credibility of the Italian judicial system and the future of the fight against corruption, in Italy and far beyond, will suffer as well.

The Vatican’s Anticorruption Crackdown and the Rule of Law

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One of Pope Francis’s top priorities, after his election in 2013, was cracking down on the Vatican’s financial corruption. In his first months as pope, Francis closed thousands of unauthorized accounts of the Vatican Bank, and in 2014, he created the Office of the Auditor General to monitor Vatican finances and spearhead anticorruption efforts. Perhaps the most high-profile consequence of the Pope’s crackdown was the two-and-a-half year investigation and trial of Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu—the Pope’s former chief of staff—and nine others for financial corruption. While this so-called “Vatican trial of the century” included a range of alleged crimes, its locus involved the Holy See’s $380 million investment in a London real estate deal, which Vatican prosecutors alleged defrauded the Vatican to the tune of tens of millions. In December 2023, Cardinal Becciu was convicted of three counts of embezzlement and sentenced to five and a half years in prison. All but one of the other defendants were convicted on charges including embezzlement, corruption, and fraud, and several of them also received prison terms.

Although viewed by some as a triumph for the Pope’s efforts to clean up the Vatican, the investigation and prosecution of Becciu and his codefendants generated a firestorm of criticism. One legal expert affiliated with the defense described certain actions by Vatican authorities as “unacceptable abuses;” a Vatican canon lawyer likened the process to that of a “banana republic.” The most serious complaint—raised by the defense team, some legal commentators, and at least one cardinal—was that Pope Francis improperly used his power to “secretly” change the law four times via papal “rescripts” (roughly equivalent to executive orders) throughout the course of the investigation to give prosecutors “essentially, and a bit surreally, ‘carte blanche.’” These rescripts, which were never formally published (and were not produced to the defendants until the trial was underway), did four things:

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COP Co-Opted: How Corruption and Undue Influence Threaten Multilateral Climate Action

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The ongoing COP 29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, has been living up to the anticorruption community’s worst fears. Risks of undue influence, corporate capture, and corruption arising from yet another authoritarian petrostate hosting a UN climate conference are rampant. (See reports by Global Witness / BBC and OCCRP.)

Tomorrow, November 15, David Szakonyi, Co-Founder of the Anticorruption Data Collective, Associate Professor, George Washington University, and GAB contributor (here) will present a recent report examining the risks and outlining what the UNFCCC, the UN process for curbing climate change, can do to protect future COPs from corporate capture.

 The report was produced by the Collective in partnership with Transparency International.

The virtual event will be held 10:00 – 11:15am EST and is hosted by the Central Asia Program at George Washington University. Along with Professor Szakonyi it features, Kate Watters, Emin Bayramli, and Karl Horberg. 

Register here

Event link

New Podcast Episode, Featuring Dan Hough

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available.In this episode, host Liz Dávid-Barrett interviews Professor Dan Hough of the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption about his new book, Foul Play: Tackling Football’s Integrity Problem. Professor Hough discusses how he applies analytical frameworks from the corruption and governance fields to analyze the integrity challenges facing football, both on and off the pitch. The discussion also covers how debates over integrity in football connects to broader debates about how to encourage integrity in other areas.
You can find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations:
KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

New Podcast Episode, Featuring David Jancsics

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available.In this episode, host Liz Dávid-Barrett interviews Professor David Jancsics of the San Diego State University School of Public Affairs about about his his research on the sociology of corruption. Drawing on sociological and other theoretical insights, Professor Jancsics proposes classifying types of corruption using two cross-cutting dimensions–the type of resource transfer and the type of client–and uses these dimensions to develop a new typology of corruption that identifies for basic types: (1) market corruption, (2) social bribe, (3) corrupt organization, and (4) state capture. The discussion goes into particular depth regarding that fourth category, exploring the problem of state capture in Hungary. The interview also touches on another line of Professor Jancsics’ research, concerning corruption at borders.
You can find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations:
KickBack was originally founded as a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN). It is now hosted and managed by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption. If you like it, please subscribe/follow, and tell all your friends!

Guest Post: Lessons from the Extractive Sector for Fighting Corruption in Green Energy

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Today’s guest post comes from Mark Robinson, Executive Director of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), and Maja de Vibe, Senior Vice President at Statkraft, Europe’s largest producer of renewable energy. They write in a personal capacity, building on a joint research paper published by the Basel Institute on Governance.

In response to the global climate crisis, countries around the world are seeking to shift to clean energy. The result is massive pressure to invest in solar, wind, hydropower, and green hydrogen projects. As this critical investment moves forward, it is more important than ever to address the corruption and governance risks around issues like supply chains, licensing, land leases, community consultation, tax and royalties. After all, as investment in the renewables sector grows, so does its attractiveness to those seeking to exploit opportunities for bribery and fraud. Making good governance and anticorruption a priority can help the green energy sector mitigate the risks to communities and the environment, and ensure more equitable sharing of the benefits and burdens of renewable energy development

Yet while companies are increasingly aware of governance and corruption risks in the renewables sector, there has been insufficient action to address them so far. There are numerous reasons for this, including the fact that companies might prioritize more immediate needs, such as securing finance or community support, or they may lack the knowledge and capacity to analyze and address corruption risks. Continue reading →

The U.S. Congress Must (and Can) Right the Supreme Court’s Wrongs

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This past June, in a case called Snyder v. United States, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt another blow to federal anticorruption law. The defendant in Snyder was a former mayor of an Indiana town. During his time as mayor, he helped steer a city contract to a certain company, and that company subsequently paid him $13,000 in “consulting fees.” He was convicted under a federal statute, 18 U.S.C. § 666, which makes it a federal crime for a state or local official to “corruptly solicit[,] demand[,] …or accept[] … anything of value from any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any” federally funded program. The question in the case was whether this statute prohibits so-called “gratuities”—payments that are corruptly made to a government official in recognition of action that an official has taken or has committed to take, but without evidence that the promise of the payment was what induced the official to take that act. The Court held that § 666 does not prohibit gratuities. In other words, as long as there is no agreement beforehand, the Court held that § 666 allows people or businesses to reward their state and local officials for favorable government action. In so holding, the Supreme Court has in effect provided a blueprint for using money, gifts, and other material incentives to influence state and local government.

The Court’s Snyder decision is yet another in a string of recent cases that have undermined and impeded federal anticorruption prosecutions in the United States—a string that includes McDonnell v. United States, Kelly v. United States, and Percoco v. United States. These decisions have been criticized—often fairly—for their narrow, crabbed reading of the relevant statutes. But it is a bit too easy to make the Court the sole villain of the story. As the Court itself has emphasized, it is Congress’s responsibility to create clear laws. And Congress should not be given a free pass in light of its failure to respond to the Court’s decisions.

It is true, as noted on this blog (see here and here) and elsewhere (see here, here, and here), that Congress appears at best uninterested in, and at worst hostile to, enacting more robust anticorruption laws. Yet we should not be too quick to conclude that getting meaningful amendments to the laws that the Supreme Court has interpreted narrowly would be a political impossibility. Indeed, at the end of August three Members of Congress (two Democrats and one Republican) introduced the No Gratuities for Governing Act, which would amend § 666 to expressly prohibit gratuities, and in so doing would hold state and local officials to the same standard that applies to federal officials (codified at 18 U.S.C. § 201). Three Senators (all Democrats) introduced a parallel bill in the Senate, the Stop Corrupt Gratuities Act, in early September. Despite the understandable cynicism about the ability of the U.S. Congress to act on this matter, there are several reasons why this proposed legislation might actually have a fighting chance:

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Open letter to OECD Antibribery Convention’s Working Group on Italy’s Noncompliance

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In a world where the fight against corruption remains an uphill struggle, the OECD Antibribery Convention is a signal achievement. The 38 members of the OECD, the world’s richest nations, have bound themselves to make it a crime under their domestic law for any person or entity subject to their jurisdiction to bribe an official of a foreign country. What was once common practice by large multinational corporations is now subject to stiff fines for the corporation and prison sentences for their executives.

To ensure their commitment is more than just words on paper, convention parties regularly review each other’s compliance. But as this blog has reported, recent decisions by the Italian judiciary and the Italian government now threaten the enormous progress made in curbing foreign bribery (here, here, and here). Italy’s compliance is being discussed this day by the group charged with reporting on compliance with the Convention. In the letter to group members reprinted below, current and former corruption prosecutors, investigators, academics, and activists urge the group to hold Italy to account for its noncompliance.

The letter remains open for signature. Those who wish to add their names should do so by submitting a comment to this post.. Italy’s noncompliance must remain at the top of the international agenda to fight corruption.

We the undersigned anti-corruption experts and practitioners are writing in the context of discussions about Italy and its resistance to recommendations contained in the Working Group’s (WG) 2022 Phase IV report on Italy. 

We wish to inform you of our immense concerns about Italy’s performance pre and post the Phase IV report issued by the WG.  In particular, we would point you to the following:

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