Chances are, you probably haven’t heard of Section 1504 of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. But this rule, adopted on Monday by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), brings with it the potential for big global change. Section 1504 requires that all oil, gas and mining companies listed in the […]
A trail of $2 billion in offshore deals that traces to Vladimir Putin’s inner circle. The Prime Minister of Iceland, accused of hiding millions of dollars in investments. The Prime Minister of Pakistan’s family, linked to six luxury real estate deals in London. The Panama Papers, revealed yesterday, represent the largest data leak in history […]
A corruption investigator walks into a law firm and says he wants to buy a brownstone, a jet and a yacht. This isn’t the start of a joke. It’s the premise of the latest investigation by Global Witness, the anti-corruption organization co-founded by 2014 TED Prize winner Charmian Gooch. In an investigation revealed on 60 Minutes as well […]
Earlier this month, the Queen announced legislation to clamp down on corporate secrecy in her speech at the opening of Parliament in the United Kingdom. This may be news to the rest of the world, but it was a hard-won victory for the campaigners at Global Witness, an international non-governmental organization known for hard-hitting field investigations […]
By Natasha Scripture Anti-corruption activist Charmian Gooch stood up on stage at TED2014 tonight and revealed her TED Prize wish: to get rid of anonymous companies once and for all by making who owns and controls them public knowledge. As head of Global Witness, a UK-based non-profit that has been campaigning for transparency for the […]
“TED Prize winners are heroes,” says longtime TEDster Jeff Skoll, as he introduces this year’s TED Prize winner. “They often go on to exceed even their own most audacious goals.” Watch Charmian Gooch’s TED Talk >> This year, by sheer coincidence, the Skoll Foundation and TED chose to honor the same person with their annual awards—Charmian […]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1O97HZev7A&w=586&h=330] Transparency isn’t just a nice-to-do for businesses. It’s essential, says Charmian Gooch, the anti-corruption crusader who accepted the TED Prize tonight. On the TED2014 stage, Gooch revealed her wish for the world. “My wish is for us to know who owns and controls companies, so that they can no longer be used anonymously against […]
At TED2014, Charmian Gooch made the TED Prize wish to launch a new era of openness in business and end the phenomenon of anonymous companies. “Anonymous companies are making it difficult, and sometimes impossible, to find the actual human beings responsible for really bad crimes,” she said. So how do anonymous companies work? This infographic explains the […]
“It’s easy to think that corruption happens somewhere over there, carried out by a bunch of greedy despots,” says anti-corruption activist Charmian Gooch in her blistering talk from TEDGlobal 2013. “The reality is that the engine of corruption exists far beyond the shores of countries like Equatorial Guinea or Nigeria or Turkmenistan. This engine is driven […]
When we talk about corruption, certain types of individuals come to mind, says Charmian Gooch, co-founder of watchdog NGO Global Witness. She gives some familiar examples of the type. There’s the (former) Soviet megalomaniac — such as Saparmurat Niyazov, the all-powerful leader of Turkmenistan, whose indulgences included erecting a 40-foot-high gold-plated statue of himself that […]