The Lisbon Conference on 5-7 July 2022 saw high-level representatives from Lusophone countries, including Angola, Cape Verde, Mozambique and Timor-Leste, come together with international experts. Together, they explored non-conviction based forfeiture (NCBF) laws – mechanisms to seize and confiscate proceeds of corruption and other crimes when a criminal conviction is not possible.
The rapid expansion of anti-corruption Collective Action is offering businesses, governments and civil society groups powerful ways to enhance business integrity and create fair business conditions. What does Collective Action look like in practice? What benefits does it bring, what is success, and how do you measure it? And what should we expect from each other in these multi-stakeholder initiatives?
This two-day hybrid conference gathered thousands of crypto specialists and financial investigators from law enforcement, regulators and the private sector.
The conference was hosted by Europol at its headquarters in The Hague, the Netherlands, together with the Basel Institute on Governance through the Joint Working Group on Criminal Finances and Cryptocurrencies.
The second edition of Basel Gold Day, held at the University of Basel, brought together leading voices from across the gold supply chain and civil society.
The panel discussions explored various problematic aspects of the gold industry, with a focus on recycled gold.
This session at the 2022 International Anti-Corruption Conference aimed to generate a realistic understanding of existing options for recovering assets frozen under sanctions related to the war in Ukraine. It also sought to identify and promote new instruments that countries could introduce for this purpose, thereby contributing to the global effort to accelerate asset recovery and push boundaries of current practice.
The European Commission has issued a strong endorsement of anti-corruption Collective Action as a “best practice” in the fight against corruption.
Its Handbook of good practices in the fight against corruption explains how Collective Action can bring together “stakeholders in the private and public sectors, civil society, and international organisations to tackle shared problems of corruption and raise integrity standards."
Published by the Targeting Natural Resource Corruption (TNRC) project, this Topic Brief explains how a well-designed system of internal controls can help to reduce corrupt behaviour affecting law enforcement against illegal wildlife trade (IWT), as well as enhance the functioning of IWT enforcement systems as a whole.
It is based on extensive field research and collaboration with agencies tasked with IWT enforcement in three countries in Africa and Latin America.
The topic brief covers:
The European Commission's Handbook of good practices in the fight against corruption maps a variety of anti-corruption practices in EU Member States that have proved to be useful in solving problems related to corruption, and which can inspire similar initiatives elsewhere.
Key among these is Collective Action, which the Handbook explains and endorses in detail. It explains the key characteristics of Collective Action initiatives compared to accountability initiatives and lists several typologies and mechanisms.
The head of Peru's Judiciary, Javier Arévalo Vela, has publicly highlighted Peru's success in recovering the proceeds of corruption and related financial crimes through its non-conviction based forfeiture law, Extinción de Dominio.
The subsystem Peru has rolled out to implement the law "allows the state to recover money from cases of corruption, money laundering and more" he said. Around USD 64 million have already been recovered, with many more cases in the pipeline.
On 21 February 2023, the Basel Institute on Governance together with the National Business Initiative (NBI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) and Covington organised a Thought Leadership Dialogue on "Partnering Against Money Laundering and Corruption in South Africa and the Subregion" in Johannesburg.
This event allowed for thought-provoking discussions on how to strengthen the fight against illicit financial flows in the region.