Tag Archives: Basel Institute on Governance

Guest Post: Getting into the Weeds of Victim Compensation in Foreign Bribery Cases

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Today’s guest post is from Sam Hickey, a lawyer and former regular GAB contributor:

Given the Trump Administration’s decision to pause FCPA enforcement and disband the DOJ’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, the United Kingdom has become an even more important actor in international efforts to remediate those most impacted by foreign bribery, and the global fight against corruption more generally.

Together with the Basel Institute on Governance, I have written a report on the UK’s use of Deferred Prosecution Agreements (DPAs) to compensate the victims of foreign bribery. Given the inherent difficulties in seizing, forfeiting, and repatriating illicit wealth through traditional asset recovery frameworks, DPAs possess immense potential to remediate the victims of corruption in low-income countries. But this practice also raises a number of questions and challenges, which the report seeks to address. Here are some of the more serious ones: Continue reading →

Gretta Fenner 1975–2024: Addenda Memorial Service Information

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GAB sadly reports passing of Gretta Fenner, Managing Director of the Basel Institute on Governance and Director of its International Centre for Asset Recovery. A close friend of this writer and a true champion of the global fight against corruption, she died Saturday evening in an automobile accident in Nairobi. A message from Basel Institute’s President is here.

Dear friends and followers of the Basel Institute,

You will doubtless by now be aware of the tragic passing of our Managing Director Gretta Fenner last weekend.

Even as we grieve, we have appreciated the countless messages of condolence and tributes that have been flooding in from all corners of the world. Their depth and breadth are testimony to the extraordinary woman that Gretta was and the passion that she inspired in the anti-corruption community and beyond.

Many have shared their sympathy and memories on LinkedIn, X and Facebook.

For those close to Gretta who wish to transmit a message to the Institute’s team or her family and partner, please fill in this form. 

A selection will also be displayed on a public tribute web page that is under development.

Many thanks from all of us at the Basel Institute on Governance

Memorial Service

The Memorial Service for Gretta will be held on Wednesday, 8 May at 14:00 Swiss time at the Grossmünster in Zurich. Live streaming will be available at this link. 

In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to support the tennis club in Nairobi, which Gretta helped to set up and where her son Lukas had a wonderful time earlier this year. View details.

New Podcast Episode, Featuring Gretta Fenner and Daniel Eriksson

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. In this episode, host Liz Dávid-Barrett speaks with Gretta Fenner, the Managing Director of the Basel Institute on Governance, and Daniel Eriksson, the CEO of of Transparency International. The episode was recorded shortly after Gretta and Daniel attended the Munich Security Conference, where they raised the issue of corruption as a key national security concern, and the podcast conversation focuses on that issue as well. The discussion touches on the new global context of heightened insecurity and the implications this has for those working to counter corruption. They also discuss the phenomenon of “strategic corruption,” defined in the U.S. Strategy on Countering Corruption as “when a government weaponizes corrupt practices as a tenet of its foreign policy,” and how addressing this sort of corruption, though essential, may raise challenging questions for anticorruption campaigners about the problem of “picking sides” in global political conflicts. You can also 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 Announcement: New Basel AML Index Now Available

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Kateryna Boguslavska, project manager at the Basel Institute on Governance, provides the following announcement:

Earlier this month, the Basel Institute on Governance released its annual Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Index; the public edition of this index, which draws on 18 separate indicators, ranks 152 jurisdictions according to each jurisdiction’s risks of money laundering and terrorist financing, and its capacity to counter those risks. (While the public edition is freely available, those interested in a more in-depth exploration of the data, for a larger number of jurisdictions, can sign up for the Expert Edition — also free for users outside the private sector.) The launch of the Basel AML Index was accompanied by a launch webinar, as well as a report. That report focuses on three important topics: virtual assets, confiscation of illicit assets, and the misuse of non-profit organizations for terrorist financing. This resource may be useful for many researchers who study corruption and illicit financial flows.

New Podcast Episode, Featuring Claudia Baez Camargo

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available. In latest episode, host Liz David-Barrett interviews Claudia Baez Camargo, the Head of Public Governance at the Basel Institute on Governance. In the episode, Ms. Carmago discusses her work on applying social norms theory corruption issues, using examples drawn from East Africa and Ukraine. She discusses some of the successes in altering social norms around corruption in health settings, but she also notes some of the challenges in sustaining these initiatives. She also discusses how we might use insights from behavioral science to improve anticorruption interventions. You can also 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 Andrii Borovyk and Gretta Fenner

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A new episode of KickBack: The Global Anticorruption Podcast is now available.I know that I said in the post announcing the episode from a couple weeks back that that one would be the last post before our summer vacation, but I spoke too soon–last week I had the opportunity to speak with Andrii Borovyk, the Executive Director of Transparency International’s Ukraine chapter, and Gretta Fenner, the Managing Director of the Basel Institute on Governance, about addressing corruption risks inherent in emergency aid to Ukraine during the current conflict and the anticipated future infusion of funds to assist with post-war reconstruction. (Full disclosure: I am on the Board of Directors for Transparency International Ukraine, an unpaid position, and in that capacity I have worked with Andrii, though not directly on this issue.) After sharing their respective backgrounds in the field, Andrii and Gretta discuss how Russia’s aggression affected anticorruption advocacy work within Ukraine, and emphasize the importance for both domestic and international actors to strengthen institutions and mechanisms to prevent corruption in aid and reconstruction efforts. The conversation touches on, among other things, the challenges of pushing an anticorruption agenda in a time of national emergency, the role that aid conditionalities can play in promoting effective reform, and the importance of open, accessible, and centralized public information repositories. You can also find both this episode and an archive of prior episodes at the following locations: This really will be the last podcast episode before we go on summer break, but we will be releasing new episodes in September. The Global Anticorruption Blog is also going to go on summer hiatus during August, though I may post occasionally if something particularly important and time-sensitive comes up. As always, I’ll remind you that KickBack is a collaborative effort between GAB and the Interdisciplinary Corruption Research Network (ICRN), encourage you to subscribe, and invite you to suggest for people or topics you’d like to hear on the podcast by sending me a message.

Guest Post: Anticorruption Recommendations for the Ukraine Recovery Conference

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Today’s guest post is from Gretta Fenner, Managing Director of the Basel Institute on Governance, and Andrii Borovyk, Executive Director of Transparency International Ukraine.

Today and tomorrow, delegates from around the world are gathering at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in Lugano, Switzerland, and we hope that this conference will result in firm pledges by the international community to finance Ukraine’s post-war recovery and reconstruction. But as readers of this blog are well aware, huge infusions of money into countries recovering from war or natural disasters are a tempting target for kleptocrats, organized criminal groups, and other corrupt actors. And although Ukraine has steadily strengthened its anticorruption defenses since 2014, those defenses are not yet sufficiently robust to ensure reconstruction funds are spent with integrity.

For this reason, the Basel Institute on Governance and Transparency International Ukraine are advocating that the Ukraine Recovery Conference, and any future efforts to provide reconstruction funding for Ukraine, embrace a set of anticorruption measures to be integrated into the reconstruction process. The recommended measures include, among others:

  • prioritizing the leadership selection process and reforms of Ukraine’s anticorruption institutions, including courts;
  • using transparent procurement systems, such as Ukraine’s award-winning e-procurement system Prozorro, for reconstruction projects; and
  • strengthening asset recovery systems so that money stolen through corruption in the past can be used to help fuel reconstruction efforts.

You can see the full recommendations here in English (and here in Ukrainian ), and you can also download a shorter infographic that summarizes the key points.

Guest Post: Illicit Enrichment Laws and the Presumption of Innocence

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GAB is pleased to welcome this guest post by Andrew Dornbierer of the Basel Institute on Governance, author of the recently released open-access book Illicit Enrichment: A Guide to Laws Targeting Unexplained Wealth.

Laws targeting illicit enrichment are increasingly prevalent. To date, at least 98 jurisdictions have some form of illicit enrichment law. While the design and scope of these laws vary—some are criminal laws that can be used to convict individuals who control assets disproportionate to their lawful income, while others are civil laws that allow governments to seize assets whose lawful origins cannot be adequately explained—the common characteristic of all illicit enrichment laws is that they do not require prosecutors to secure a conviction for the underlying criminal conduct that allegedly produced the illicit wealth. Rather, illicit enrichment laws only require that the government show that the person enjoyed an amount of wealth that cannot be explained by reference to their lawful sources of income.

This characteristic serves as the primary point of attack for many critics. They claim that by not requiring a state to prove criminal activity, illicit enrichment laws effectively reverse the burden of proof, requiring the targets of the enforcement action to prove their innocence. And some countries have resisted adopting illicit enrichment laws for this very reason. While the UN Convention Against Corruption includes a specific article recommending that state parties consider adopting illicit enrichment laws, during negotiations “many [national] delegations indicated that they faced serious difficulties, often of a constitutional nature, with the inclusion of the concept of the reversal of the burden of proof.” Similar concerns were raised during the drafting of the Inter-American Convention Against Corruption (IACAC), and while in the end this convention did include a provision calling on states parties to adopt illicit enrichment laws, the United States filed a particularly clear reservation to this provision when it joined, noting that because “[t]he offense of illicit enrichment … places the burden of proof on the defendant,” such an offense “is inconsistent with the United States Constitution and fundamental principles of the United States legal system.” And in Ukraine, in February 2019 the Constitutional Court of Ukraine invalidated the local illicit enrichment law on the basis that it was inconsistent with the presumption of innocence.

Is there any truth to the claim that illicit enrichment laws unfairly place a burden of proof on the defendant, and thus violate the presumption of innocence?

The short answer is no.

Continue reading →

Review of Gemma Aiolfi’s Anticorruption Compliance for Small and Mid-Sized Organizations

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For almost two decades the Basel Institute on Governance has advised corporations large and small, first in Europe and now around the globe, on how to develop a robust anticorruption compliance program. One that will prevent the company from becoming entangled in a corruption scandal while at the same time neither compromising its ability to compete nor dampening its entrepreneurial energy. Gemma Aiolfi, who has headed the Institute’s corporate compliance work for the last seven years, presents the Institute’s collective experiences in a new volume from Elgar, Anti-Corruption Compliance for Small and Mid-Sized Organizations.

What sets Aiolfi’s book apart from the many fine volumes already on the market (examples here, here, and here) is that it is leavened with literally dozens of examples drawn from the Institute’s work. How should a company establishing a compliance program handle personnel used to doing business “the old way”?  What should a manager do if she discovers police in a developing country are threatening to shut down critical operations if the company’s low-level frontline personnel don’t pay them off? How should a company deal with senior government officials’ requests for lavish travel and entertainment allowances when visiting a company’s operations? Discussions of how to handle each, with suitably anonymized case studies explaining how management actually dealt with them, is what makes the volume so useful.

Continue reading →

Commentaries on Corruption and the Coronavirus Pandemic: Update

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A couple weeks back, I said I was thinking about trying to collect and collate the ever-increasing number of commentaries on the relationship between corruption and the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. Several readers wrote to encourage me to continue, so I’m doing another update. I’m not sure how long I’ll be able to keep this up, since commentaries in on the corruption-coronavirus connection, like the virus itself, seem to be growing at an exponential rate. I certainly don’t make any claims to comprehensiveness (and thus I beg the forgiveness of anyone whose contributions I’ve neglected to include in the list below). But here are some new pieces I came across, followed by a chronological list of corruption-coronavirus commentaries to date: Continue reading →