New report on how the banking industry facilitates resource curse corruption
Fecha: 11 Mar 2009
Publish What You Pay member Global Witness has released a new report, “Undue Diligence: How banks do business with corrupt regimes,” examining how major banks are playing a role in perpetuating the resource curse by doing business with unethical regimes. Global Witness has uncovered ties between banks and dictatorial regimes in Equatorial Guinea, vicious civil wars in Africa, human rights abusers in Central Asia and opaque extractive companies operating in Angola. “The same lax regulation that created the credit crunch has let some of the world’s biggest banks facilitate the looting of natural resource wealth from poor countries,” said Gavin Hayman, Global Witness Campaigns Director. The report recommends that anti-money laundering laws be tightened as well as a cultural change in the way banks perform “due diligence” in checking their customers.
