Italy
News and blog
ICAR conducts training workshop in Sicily on mutual legal assistance and misuse of offshore structures for MENA region countries
In conjunction with the International Institute of Higher Studies in Criminal Sciences ISISC , ICAR conducted a 5-day training workshop on mutual legal assistance and misuse of offshore structures for countries of the MENA region in Syracuse, Sicily during the period 3-7 November 2014. The aim of the workshop was to enhance the participants' capacity to formulate proper Mutual Legal Assistance requests in order to more effectively follow leads for crucial information and obtain all critical foreign evidence, and to unravel corporate and trust entities. The workshop brought together representatives from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Tunisia, and included investigative judges, prosecutors, investigators and Financial Intelligence Unit FIU representatives from each country. It provided an important opportunity for regional networking in the interest of fighting transnational corruption and tracing stolen assets. The workshop furthermore incorporated presentations on offshore corporations, trusts, ease of incorporation, secrecy, layering of trust and shell companies, ability to identify beneficial ownership and offshore banking. Experts from Switzerland Rudolf Wyss, former Deputy-Director of the Swiss Federal Office of Justice and currently a Senior Asset Recovery Consultant with ICAR and the United Kingdom Carolyne Lamptey, a senior lawyer in the UK Crown Prosecution Service and currently Regional Asset Recovery Advisor to the British Embassy in Cairo participated in the workshop by giving presentations on mechanisms for freezing and confiscating assets in their respective jurisdictions. Counsellor Hany Fathy Georgy, a Senior Appellate Judge and member of the International Co-operation Department of the Ministry of Justice in Egypt, also shared his experience on the “General Principles of Mutual Legal Assistance and the Egyptian Experience” . Mr Abdul Hafiz Mansour, Secretary of the Special Investigation Commission SIC in Lebanon, gave a presentation on the “ Initiation of Asset Recovery Process: Key Considerations ” which focused on a case scenario involving asset recovery and co-operation between Lebanon and Tunisia.
Money laundering training workshop in Syracuse
A workshop on “Co-operation between Financial Intelligence Units FIUs and Law Enforcement Agencies in fighting against money laundering and recovering illicit assets”, organised by the IMF Legal Department in collaboration with the Basel Institute of Governance BIG and the Istituto Superiore Internazionale di Scienze Criminali ISISC , was held in Syracuse, Italy, during the period 4 – 8 October 2010. The workshop brought together representatives from the following countries: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Serbia, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan, and included both representatives of FIUs and investigators/prosecutors from each country. The main objective of the training workshop was to enhance the capacities of FIUs and key law enforcement agencies in the investigation and prosecution of international money laundering and corruption cases. It also focused on assisting participants recover the proceeds of crime, and enhancing co-operation between FIUs and law enforcement agencies. Gathering intelligence and securing evidence abroad often provides the key to success in a complex investigation, bringing those involved in financial crime to book. Therefore, the need for countries to co-operate with one another formed a crucial element of the training with the training format facilitating interaction and networking between the representatives of the various countries. The centrepiece of the training programme was an extensive interactive practical exercise that simulated an actual corruption and money laundering investigation, and emphasised the collection and presentation of evidence for prosecution as well as the tracing and recovery of assets. All formal lectures given during the training served as a basis for the practical exercise, e.g. the participants learnt how to create and maintain an inventory to keep track of and easily retrieve the documents they received during the investigation, or to utilise both formal and informal channels of communication in seeking international co-operation.
Publications
Conceptualizing the evolution of corruption: an empirical analysis from Italy
In a new peer-reviewed journal article, Jacopo Costa and Claudia Baez Camargo look into why and how corruption evolves over time, drawing on an empirical analysis from Italy. The article was published in Trends in Organized Crime.
Abstract
Corruption evolves over time. This paper investigates why and how this evolution happens. The analysis has employed a combination of qualitative network and document analysis to explore the configuration of corruption in two moments in Italy and the changes that have happened in between them.
The findings have disclosed that a higher efficiency of the activities of the criminal-justice chain, the transformation of the critical actors and the reform of legal frameworks and governance systems have been critical in determining the evolution of corruption.
The added value of the research lies in its ability to examine these transformative mechanisms within a conceptual framework that keeps together the fact that corruption is networked and that networks evolve over time.
B20 Italy Integrity and Compliance Policy Paper 2021
This policy paper outlines three general recommendations for the G20 provided by the B20 Integrity and Compliance Taskforce under the B21 Italy 2021 process.
The Basel Institute on Governance was proud to serve as Network Partner to the B20 Integrity and Compliance Taskforce through its Collective Action team.
As well as wholeheartedly supporting the final Policy Paper, the Basel Institute is delighted that anti-corruption Collective Action is strongly endorsed throughout the recommendations, which cover:
- Responsible conduct through the procurement cycle
- Sustainable governance in business
- Cooperative compliance models and rewarding systems
- Beneficial ownership transparency
The EXPO MILANO ex-ante control mechanism in Italy
Following several corruption scandals that occurred in 2013 and 2014 in the procurement and construction processes of EXPO2015 Milano, the President of ANAC (Autoritá Nationale Anticorruzione – National Anti-corruption Authority of Italy) was committed functions of supervision and guarantee of the fairness and transparency of the procurement procedures related to the implementation of the event in June 2014. As part of this assignment in July 2014 ANAC established a special operational unit (UOS) to monitor the projects of the EXPO 2015.