Leaked documents reveal secretive influence of corporate cash on politics

The pervasive influence of corporate cash in the democratic process, and the extraordinary lengths to which politicians, lobbyists and even judges go to solicit money, are laid bare in sealed court documents leaked to the Guardian.

 Wisconsin governor Scott Walker holds up a dollar bill while speaking at the American Legislative Exchange Council in 2015. Photograph: Denis Poroy/AP

The John Doe files amount to 1,500 pages of largely unseen material gathered in evidence by prosecutors investigating alleged irregularities in political fundraising. Last year the Wisconsin supreme court ordered that all the documents should be destroyed, though a set survived that has now been obtained by the news organisation.

Iceland PM steps aside after protests over Panama Papers revelations

Iceland’s embattled prime minister, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, has become the first major casualty of the Panama Papers, stepping aside from his office amid mounting public outrage that his family had sheltered money offshore.

Protests continue in Reykjavík after PM’s resignation.

What was planned as a mass protest in Reykjavik on Tuesday evening turned to muted satisfaction as demonstrators vented their anger following revelations that Gunnlaugsson once owned – and his wife still owns – an offshore investment company with multimillion-pound claims on Iceland’s failed banks.

Britain’s Empire of Tax Evasion

There is a temptation, when looking at the astonishing “Panama Papers,” to start by searching for politicians from your own country who are implicated. If you are British and approach the documents in this way, you’ll find slim pickings in the information released so far.

The Worst Corruption Scandals of 2015

A goat and cash exchanged for shortened sentences in Ghanaian prisons. International soccer games that were bought and sold. Rolexes and vacation clubs traded for Chinese business deals.

In 2015, massive corruption scandals embroiled world leaders, high court judges, and the men who run the world’s soccer industry, among many others.

The Anatomy of AntiCorruption

The tradition of abusing political power for personal gain goes back to antiquity, as does the debate over whether corruption is a necessary cultural vice in a country's development or a cancer that must be obliterated for a society to progress. A topic less covered, however, is what is behind the counter-corruption current.



 In the past year or so, a striking number of scandals have been exposed, anti-corruption campaigns launched, probes deepened and leaders toppled over corruption charges. Brazil's state-run oil giant Petrobras, now the most indebted company in the world, is at the center of the biggest corruption scandal in the country's history; dozens of business executives and politicians, including the heads of the upper and lower houses of Brazil's legislature and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, are under investigation. In Mexico, President Enrique Pena Nieto has been heavily scrutinized for granting big contracts to companies that also sold him houses on favorable terms and for abruptly canceling a contract with a Chinese-led consortium for high-speed rail because of corruption allegations, as well as after the brazen escape of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman from federal prison. In Guatemala, a U.S.-backed anti-corruption investigative committee forced the resignation of President Otto Perez Molina, while in Honduras, another U.S.-led anti-corruption investigation has taken down one of the country's wealthiest and most politically connected families.

Brazil’s economy tanks as multibillion-dollar corruption scandal expands

Rodrigo Muchinelli, owner of a computer sales and repair store in Rio, said his business was in the red for the first three months of this year and is still limping. “It is a fight, daily,” said the 38-year-old businessman.

A woman shouts slogans and bangs on a pan last month during an anti-government protest demanding the impeachment of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. (Leo Correa/AP)

Laercio Soares closed a lucrative deal with a Rio samba school for his embroidery company in December. He used the money to close a family business whose workforce had fallen from 60 to eight. “We saw the perspective was bad,” said Soares, 65. “That’s why we took this drastic decision.”

The Little Anti-Corruption Agency That Could

 
December 10, 2010, former Croatian Prime Minister Ivo Sanader was driving with his brother on an Alpine highway when Austrian police stopped his car and arrested him under an international warrant. Sanader had fled Croatia a day earlier, hours before his colleagues in parliament — still led by his own party — stripped him of legislative immunity. The Austrians extradited him back home, where he was facing charges of large-scale corruption. After a year-long trial, he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment, shortened to eight and a half on appeal, for illegal kickbacks totaling 10 million euros. (In late July 2015, he was granted a retrial.)

Why debt sustains corruption in Greece and vice versa

As numerous Greek MEPs opposed the Eurozone summit deal, implementation will require a broad coalition of political parties. This column argues that corruption in Greek politics will prevent the formation of such a coalition. The heavy debt service leads parties to invent extreme ways of responding to super-austerity and to strongly oppose direct reforms that challenge existing clientelism. The way out is to sign a new agreement that combines debt restructuring and radical transparency reforms, including naming-and-shaming practices, to block clientelism in the medium and long run.

Can the Malaysian PM survive the 1MDB Scandal?

An anti-corruption probe has uncovered documents that appear to link Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak to 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) funds. The allegations have helped push the Malaysian ringgit to the lowest level in over a decade. Can the Malaysian economy survive the political fallout?

On 2 July, the Wall Street Journal reported that Malaysian investigators taking part in the 1MDB anti-corruption probe had traced funds entering into the personal bank account of what they believe to be Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.

Deutsche Bank Inquiry Deepens as New York Seeks Moscow Memos

New York’s banking regulator has asked Deutsche Bank AG for e-mails, memos, client lists and other details as part of an effort to survey how broadly a set of suspicious trades extended beyond the bank’s Moscow office, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The formal request for information, which was sent last week, the person said, marks a deepening of the New York State Department of Financial Services’ probe into Deutsche Bank’s activities in Russia. The DFS has been looking into whether people at the bank’s Moscow operation conducted trades that would help Russian clients skirt economic sanctions, the person said.

How the FIFA Scandal Could Turn Deadly

Security professionals make it their business to be unseen. At concerts and sporting events, they are the ones standing unnoticed in corners and doorways, quietly blending into the walls while someone else takes center stage.

So it's no surprise that with all the recent coverage of the FIFA scandal, more attention has been paid to Rolex-clad executives, ostensibly sitting in well-lit offices and allegedly taking bribes ahead of their next golf outing, than to a group that has enormous insight into the day-to-day dealings of FIFA's administration: the security team. Someone from that team knows what meetings are happening when and where and with whom. Someone has access to his or her travel itineraries and hotel room numbers, business and personal schedules, phone records and emails — all vital evidence for the prosecution.

After months of scandals, new rules in Mexico to tackle corruption

One day, it’s police and soldiers killing civilians. The next, top government officials lapping up perks of wealth and power.

Demonstrators hold images of some of the 43 missing students from a teachers’ college during a protest to mark the six-month anniversary of their disappearance in Mexico City in March. (Marco Ugarte/AP)

After months of scandals and public outcry, the administration of President Enrique Peña Nieto has endorsed new anti-corruption measures that many hope will begin to rebuild Mexicans’ lack of trust in their government.

HSBC scandals may lead to greater banking regulation

HSBC, a British multinational banking and financial services company and the world’s second largest bank, has come under scrutiny by American and European governments for a range of scandals, ranging from money laundering, to tax evasion, to violating international sanctions against Iran.

A growing chorus of public outrage may prompt criminal prosecution of HSBC executives and spark a new wave of regulations in the financial sector.

China's Fragile Evolution

Last week, China's anti-corruption campaign took a significant turn, though a largely overlooked one. The Supreme People's Court released a statement accusing former Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang, the highest-ranked official thus far implicated in China's ongoing anti-corruption campaign, of having "trampled the law, damaged unity within the Communist Party, and conducted non-organizational political activities." In Chinese bureaucratic speak, this was only a few steps shy of confirming earlier rumors that Zhou and his former political ally and one-time rising star from Chongqing, Bo Xilai, had plotted a coup to pre-empt or repeal the ascension of Chinese President and Party General Secretary Xi Jinping. Thus, the court's statement marks a radical departure from the hitherto depoliticized official language of the anti-corruption campaign.