Today’s guest post is from Bolaji Owasanoye, the Chair of Nigeria’s Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offenses Commission, and a member of the UN High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (the FACTI Panel).

A few weeks ago, Professor Matthew Stephenson published two posts on this blog (see here and here) that offered some reactions to the report and recommendations of the UN High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency and Integrity (the FACTI Panel), on which I served as a member. I want to first thank Professor Stephenson for his serious discussion of the report. Critical engagement on the Panel’s recommendations is very welcome, and indeed Panel members are keen to continue engagement with researchers, policymakers, and the wider public in order to accomplish our shared purpose: strengthened systems for financial integrity. Now isn’t the time for the lowest common denominator approach but instead for governments to be ambitious and thus unlock the large resources currently being drained aggressively from public finances.

Professor Stephenson generously concluded that “the FACTI Panel has done us all a useful service by providing a document that can serve as the focus for discussion and debate over this vitally important topic.” That said, on a few recommendations he called for more detail, and on an even smaller number he found what he considered as faults with the recommendations. It is on only some of these final few, and within my own area of expertise, that I want to respond to points Professor Stephenson raised. In particular, I want to explain my understanding of the Panel’s thinking in three areas: standards for settlement in bribery cases, strengthening asset recovery, and the use of escrow accounts.

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