Tag Archives: victim compensation

Cuando la corrupción nos toca

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A session on corruption victims, Cuando la corrupción nos toca: participación de víctimas y organizaciones de la sociedad civil en la lucha contra la corrupción, will be held in connection with the 194th Period of Sessions of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. 

The session will examine how corruption directly impacts individuals and communities and will highlight the role that victims and civil society organizations can play in advancing justice and promoting comprehensive reparations. Featuring leading experts from across the Latin American region, the discussion will focus on the opportunities and challenges involved in participating in judicial processes related to corruption with human rights implications. 

The event will take place on November 19, 2025, in hybrid format in Spanish from the University of Miami. Register here.

Fighting Grand Corruption: Naomi Roht-Arriaza’s Indispensable Guide to Combatting Its Scourge

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The literature on grand corruption, a/k/a kleptocracy or state capture, continues to expand at an ever-increasing rate.

Investigative exposes, think tank and NGO policy papers, academic books and articles, court cases and legal commentaries, and yes, blogs like this one make it hard for full-time students of the phenomenon, let alone policymakers, journalists and activists, to stay abreast of the learning this vast outpouring of thinking is producing.  

Thanks to University of California Law Professor Naomi Roht-Arriaza‘s new book, what we know about grand corruption, what can be done to curb it, and how to make its victims whole is now available in a single, readable, useful volume.

The title – Fighting Grand Corruption: Transnational and Human Rights Approaches in Latin America and Beyond – advertises two of its most important contributions.

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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 →

Sri Lankan Bill on Proceeds of Crime and Corruption Damage Actions

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A distinguished group of Sri Lankan judges and lawyers recently released draft legislation to recover the proceeds of crime and compensate corruption victims. Prepared at the request of Justice Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, enactment of such a bill is one of conditions of the $2.9 billion International Monetary Fund loan to stabilize the economy and restore economic growth.

While the proposed legislation exceeds the IMF requirement, providing for both criminal and non-conviction-based forfeiture of the proceeds of any crime, its overriding significance is it offers means for recovering the hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars corrupt officials have stolen from Sri Lankan citizens. The bill also establishes administrative procedures for compensating those injured by the corrupt act that generated the confiscated assets and granting anyone harmed by corruption the right to bring a civil action for damages.

The bill is accompanied by a clearly written report spelling out its provisions and explaining their rationale. A very nice diagram illistrates how the various freezing, seizure, and confiscation provisions will operate. Those in other nations struggling to write their own asset recovery or victim compensation legislation will find much of value in the Sri Lankans’ effort. (Text of bill with report and diagram here.)

At the same time, the bill is still in draft. Its authors welcome comments and critiques from Sri Lankans and international observers. Comments can be sent directly to the Ministry of Justice. Or GAB will be pleased to forward them to the appropriate personnel.

UPDATE. GAB just learned that Transparency International Sri Lanka has also posted a request for comments on the bill along with a brief explanation of the bill importance and the need for public input in English, Sinhalese, and Tamil here. The link includes an address to which comments can be sent.

Victims of Corruption Focus of Today’s COSP Events

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Four events at today’s meeting of the Council of State Parties to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption put the damage corruption does to individuals and organizations front and center. The subject and starting hour (U.S. East Coast time) of each:

  • 9:00: Strategic Litigation: Advocacy Tool for Policy Change (details here)
  • 13:00: Victims of Corruption, New York Meeting Room (details here)
  • 16:00: Righting the wrong: Tools for Asset Recovery in Global Corruption Cases, New York Meeting Room
  • 18:00: A Victim-Centered Approach to Anticorruption Actions, Seattle Meeting Room (details here)

Among the highlights will be a review and discussion at Victims of Corruption session of StAR’s just published volume Victims of Corruption: Back for Payback. A heroic effort to bring together the diverse sources and approaches to compensating victims of corruption (to which I was honored to contribute), it represents a major step forward in focusing the attention of UNCAC states parties, jurists, and civil society activists on article 35, UNCAC’s most overlooked provision –

Each State Party shall take such measures as may be necessary, in accordance with principles of its domestic law, to ensure that entities or persons who have suffered damage as a result of an act of corruption have the right to initiate legal proceedings against those responsible for that damage in order to obtain compensation.

UNCAC Coalition to UNCAC State Parties: Ensure Corruption Victims Can Recover Damages

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As Carlos Guerrero explained here last week, corruption is anything but a victimless crime. Citizens are injured or killed when corruptly constructed buildings collapse on them. Others are denied the right to education, life saving medical treatment, and the fair resolution of their disputes thanks to bribery, embezzlement, and conflicts of interest.

The drafters of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption were not blind to the tremendous damage corruption does to identifiable persons or groups of persons. That is why they included a specific provision making it absolutely clear that all parties must grant victims of corruption an opportunity to seek compensation for any injuries sustained. In no uncertain terms article 35 requires state parties to open their courts to any individual or entity injured “as a result of an act of corruption.”

But UNCAC state parties have yet to take article 35 seriously. Academics, civil society organizations, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime all report that only a few victims in a handful of states have recovered damages. In the vast majority of the 190 countries that have ratified the Convention, not a single person injured by corruption has been compensated for their loss.

The UNCAC Coalition‘s Working Groups, a global network of over 350 civil society organizations in 100 countries, is demanding change. The parties to UNCAC meet this December in Atlanta to review each other’s progress in complying with the convention. Below is the Coalition’s letter to them urging that compliance with article 35 by all 190 be a priority.

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Guest Post: Forcing States to Grant Corruption Victims Legal Standing

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Today’s guest post is by Carlos G. Guerrero Orozco, a Mexican litigation lawyer and partner at López Melih y Estrada Abogados. He chairs the non-profit Derechos Humanos y Litigio Estratégico Mexicano and heads the International Database Taskforce at the Working Group on Victims of Corruption of the UNCAC Coalition.

Corruption is what social scientists call a “wicked problem,” one extraordinarily difficult to solve because of its complex and interconnected nature. Governments thus need all the help they can muster to tackle it. But too many sideline a critical ally, those harmed by corruption.

Corruption’s victims are many and their injuries diverse. Journalists threatened, and too frequently murdered, for revealing corrupt schemes. Whistleblowers attacked for denouncing corruption. Citizens injured or killed when corruptly constructed buildings collapse; those denied access to education, health care, and fair courts thanks to bribery, embezzlement, and other corruption crimes.

All are victims and all have real claims for damages and strong incentives for joining with governments to fight corruption.

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Guest Post: U.K. Court Refuses to Compensate Victims of Foreign Bribery

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Today’s Guest Post is by Dr Helen Taylor, senior legal researcher at Spotlight on Corruption, a charity that shines a light on the United Kingdom’s role in corruption at home and abroad. Helen leads Spotlight’s court monitoring programme, tracking the enforcement of the UK’s anti-corruption law in major court cases and building an evidence base for advocacy and policy recommendations on asset recovery, victim compensation, and other corruption-related issues.

Last week a London court fined commodities giant Glencore for bribing officials in five African oil producing nations in return for getting “special deals” on their oil. While the court ordered the company to pay £280 million (just over $318 million) for its numerous violations of the U.K. foreign bribery law, it refused to direct Glencore to compensate those its bribes injured: the governments and citizens of the five nations. In fact, victims did not even get a foot in the courtroom door — the Serious Fraud Office, which prosecuted the case, refused to put a compensation request before the court, and the court itself rejected the Nigerian government’s application for compensation.

The case brings home the pressing need to reform the UK’s compensation framework to ensure overseas victims are represented and compensated in complex corruption cases.

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Eliminating Barriers to Compensating Corruption Victims  

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StAR yesterday held six panels on asset recovery issues as part of the meeting of the Conference of State Parties to UNCAC. I participated in the one on compensating corruption victims along with Costa Rican prosecutor Greysa Barrientos, Kate McMahon, Chair the International Bar Association’s Anticorruption Asset Recovery Subcommittee Kate McMahon, and Juanita Olaya Garcia of the UNCAC Coalition.

Panel moderators Yara Esquivel of StAR and Felipe Falconi from UNODC asked that I discuss what avenues of relief were available to corruption victims, the main challenges they face in recovering damages, and what reforms are needed to overcome those challenges. My remarks follow.   

Avenues of relief. Corruption victims generally have two options for obtaining compensation – as an adjunct to a criminal prosecution of the perpetrators by the state or by bringing a private civil suit against them.

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Civil Society to the CoSP: Corruption Victims Are Entitled to Compensation

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The Council of State Parties to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, the governments of the now 188 nations that have ratified the Convention, meets this week to review its implementation.  

When it comes to prosecuting bribery, embezzlement, and other corruption crimes, progress has been made. The UN Office of Drugs and Crime reports that “[i]n a considerable number of countries, legislative amendments and structural reforms have produced coherent and largely harmonized criminalization regimes, tangible results in terms of enforcement capabilities and action.”

But the Convention’s “enforcement capabilities and action” extend beyond criminal prosecution.  Article 35 requires state parties to ensure those injured “as a result of an act of corruption” can enforce a claim for damages against the perpetrators.

Here little progress has been made.  The UNODC, Transparency International, academics (here and here), and this writer have all found that few corruption victims have recovered damages. 

The UNCAC Coalition, a global network of over 350 civil society organizations in 100 plus countries, urges the CoSP to address this gap in implementation.  In a formal submission, the coalition offers a series of recommendations to see that victims, either individually or through a class or representative action, can recover full compensation for the harm caused by corruption. It’s timely and important submission is here.