The Basel Institute on Governance welcomes the successful conclusion of a case of asset recovery involving the UK and Kenya. The assets in the amount of £2,222,957 were confiscated by Mr Recorder Andrew Mitchel QC in the case of R v Smith and Ouzman. The UK authorities decided that an amount of £349,057.39 should be used to purchase specialised ambulances that were formally handed over to the Kenyan Government on 17 March. The purchase of ambulances with the returned assets meets urgent needs in the Kenyan health care delivery system.

From 30 to 31 March 2017, the OECD invites pioneers from a variety of backgrounds and academic disciplines to share their latest evidence and findings in corruption at the Global Anti-Corruption & Integrity Forum in Paris. Researchers from the Basel Institute will be present to discuss their findings on new approaches to anti-corruption. 

The Lausanne Process consists of seminars (Lausanne seminars) addressed to practitioners in the field of asset recovery. Switzerland has been hosting them regularly since 2001. Experience has shown that close cooperation between the countries involved, particularly at the judicial level, that is at the stage of mutual legal assistance, is of key importance for the successful restitution of such funds. The Lausanne seminars are intended to transfer practical knowledge and to help strengthen international cooperation and coordination between requesting and requested states.

The Basel Institute on Governance and the Peruvian Judiciary organized a training seminar on anti-corruption and asset recovery aimed at building capacity in innovative methods to fight cross border corruption. The four day training is the first of a series of capacity building events requested by the Peruvian authorities and was delivered to the recently installed unit of judges specialized in corruption of public officials, created by the judicial authorities to deal with the Odebrecht scandal.

On Wednesday, 19 April 2017 the Basel Institute in cooperation with Norton Rose Fulbright hosted an insightful discussion as to how to develop a successful anti-corruption Collective Action with peer companies or other stakeholders and how Collective Action can invigorate anti-corruption programmes in markets with systemic corruption.  

On 28 April, Kenya's Attorney General’s Office and the Swiss Federal Office of Justice signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on international mutual assistance in criminal matters in Nairobi. The MOU will facilitate the cooperation between the two countries in investigating and prosecuting international corruption and other financial crimes.

Windward Trading, a company registered in Jersey, pleaded guilty yesterday, on 24 February 2016, to four counts of money laundering at Jersey's Royal Court. A confiscation order was granted amounting to GBP 3.6 million and discussions are underway between the Government of Kenya, Jersey authorities and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the United Kingdom as to the repatriation of these assets.

On May 3rd, 2017, the B20 officially handed over its Policy Recommendations to German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin. The anti-corruption recommendations include calls to establish beneficial ownership transparency, as well as to recognise corporate compliance efforts, as the Chair Klaus Moosmayer said "combatting corruption must be a joint effort that addresses both the supply and the demand sides of corruption.”

The latest FCPA Blog post written by our managing director, Gretta Fenner, is about the responsibility and possible criminal liability of companies and their officials relating to human right violations allegedly committed abroad.

Should a CEO for example step down when a violation of financial or other conduct rules has occurred, which may even make the corporation complicit in terrorism financing or war crimes? Or should prosecution be a consequence of such transgression? 

In order to tackle the widespread corruption in Bulgaria, the Centre for the Study of Democracy, a Bulgarian inter-disciplinary public policy institute, has partnered with the Basel Institute to provide technical assistance, under the Bulgarian Thematic Fund Security Project “Overcoming institutional capacity gaps to counter corruption and organized crime in Bulgaria”.