Private equity, financial intermediaries and what they mean for development
Nicholas Hildyard
22 November 2010
The Private Sector Turn conference explored the increasing shift from public to private funding in development finance, the forms it takes and what it means for activists and affected people.
A BBC radio programme asks whether the plea bargaining strategy adopted by the UK's Serious Fraud Office (SFO) in the past two years "to punish firms who use bribery and corruption to win contracts abroad" is working. It queries several aspects of the SFO's proposed settlement with BAE Systems, including an agreement that appears to give immunity from prosecution to any individual who might have committed wrong-doing in those affairs.
A BBC Radio 4 programme Law in Action examined what difference proposed reforms of the UK’s anti-bribery laws would make and recent cases, such as the Serious Fraud Office's settlement with BAE Systems.
BBC2 Television's Newsnight current affairs programme summarised its 8 minute broadcast: "In 2006, the British government scotched a serious fraud investigation into BAE's biggest deal, with Saudi Arabia. Now, Peter Marshall [Newsnight presenter] reveals that the company may have returned the favour. It has stopped a billion pound insurance contract which tied the government to the Saudi business." Information about stopping the insurance contract came to light as a result of legal correspondence between The Corner House and Campaign Against Arms Trade with the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department.
The US public television's flagship public affairs programme, Frontline, produced a 60-minute documentary on "black money" -- the secret payments that make up the shadowy world of international bribery. It reveals how multinational companies create slush funds and set up front companies to obtain business and contracts. In describing the crackdown on these practices, the documentary focuses on BAE Systems and allegations about its billion dollar bribes. It includes an interview with former Serious Fraud Office (SFO) Director Robert Wardle, who describes as "blackmail" the Saudi threat to withdraw intelligence cooperation with the UK if the SFO's BAE-Saudi investigation continued.
On 12-13 March 2009, development, environment and human rights groups from Belgium, France, Italy, Ireland, Switzerland and the UK, and local residents of the island of Jersey organised a seminar to discuss the necessity for tax haven reform and to exchange views on how governments and civil society can work towards achieving a "just transition" for tax havens that would not impact on poorer residents.
Exploring both ends of the carbon market through research and interviews in Uganda and The Netherlands, this video (available in Portuguese and English versions) brings new clarity to the debate over climate change solutions.
A discussion hosted by the Climate Justice Chicago Coalition at De Paul University examines how carbon trading creates transferable rights to dump carbon, slows social and technological change, promotes socially and ecologically destructive practices and is ineffective and unjust. This TV programme was produced by Chicago Access Network Television (CAN TV).
A two-hour discussion on climate politics and carbon trading at the Unitarian Church, Montpelier, Vermont, on 28 January 2008, with Jutta Kill, Brian Tokar and Larry Lohmann, videoed by Orca Productions.
OpenSpace and CRESC held a one-day workshop in February 2010 on the underlying principles and practical prescriptions for financial reform. It was organised around three main questions:
