With a view to enhancing the investigation and asset recovery capacities of the Romanian law enforcement and justice authorities mandated to investigate and prosecute anti-corruption and economic crimes and recover stolen assets, the Basel Institute on Governance, through its International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR), has been providing a series of activities, including specialised training in financial investigation, under a project entitled “Further enhancing the investigation capacities of the Romanian judiciary by improving the asset recovery competences”.

The Metals Technology Industry (MTI) Anti-Corruption Collective Action Initiative has recently expanded its membership. Tenova S.p.A. has joined the three founding members of the Initiative: Danieli & C Meccaniche S.p.A., Primetals Technologies Limited and SMS GmbH - in their anti-corruption Collective Action efforts. Tenova S.p.A. is a leading mechanical engineering company for the steel and non-ferrous metals processing industry headquartered in Castellanza, Italy. 

Last week two celebratory events took place that at first glance appear to have little in common: One was the annual awarding of the Nobel prizes in Stockholm. The other was in Paris, and it marked the 20th anniversary of the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery in International Business Transactions (‘Foreign Bribery Convention’).

On 15 and 16 January 2018, more than 60 financial investigators, lawyers, regulators and other specialists in anti-money laundering, cybercrime and financial intelligence took part in an expert workshop on Cryptocurrencies and Money Laundering jointly organised by the Basel Institute on Governance, Europol and INTERPOL in Basel, Switzerland.

February 2018 has seen the last iteration of the successful "Mapping and Visualizing Cross-Border Crime Project”, a partnership between the Basel Institute on Governance and two not-for-profit organisations in Romania, namely, the Journalism Development Network (JDN) and the RISE Project. 

The OECD and the Basel Institute on Governance would like to invite all participants of the 2018 OECD Global Anti-Corruption & Integrity Forum and any other interested stakeholders to attend the panel session.

Moderated by OECD Legal Director Nicola Bonucci

At the OECD Headquarters (2 rue André Pascal, Paris 75016) March 29, 2018, at 10am
Conference Centre, Room CC7

The Basel Institute's International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) celebrated the long-term sustainability of its 2016 Train-the-Trainer project in Uganda when three selected participants conducted their first Financial Investigations and Asset Recovery workshop during 5 – 9 March 2018. These participants received certification as trainers in the ICAR approach and methodology at the end of 2016, and successfully conducted this workshop, independent of the ICAR experts, for 25 of their colleagues.

In response to the challenges facing members of the judiciary, prosecutors and investigators in curbing procurement fraud and corruption in Uganda, training experts from the International Centre for Asset Recovery conducted a five-day specialised training module on investigations into corruption in infrastructure projects and procurement.

Practitioners and policy makers from Africa and Europe met last week in Berlin, Germany, to discuss ways to further accelerate the success rate in recovering stolen assets. The event was organised by the German Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) with support from the Basel Institute's International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) and GIZ, and brought together representatives from Ethiopia, France, Germany, Jersey, Kenya, Norway, Switzerland, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda and the United Kingdom. 

Informal practices are pervasive in all societies, and we are all in some form or other impacted by them, often without noticing at all but bearing the consequences nonetheless. Thus, they are hardly ever explicitly articulated or reflected in our governments’ policy making. The Basel Institute on Governance cordially invites you to a debate how informal practices shape the fabric of societies around the world and the impact they have on people’s life and more broadly on development outcomes.