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It has been a historic week in the legal fight against corruption.
This morning, a French court convicted Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, vice-president of Equatorial Guinea and son of the president, of embezzlement.
Transparency International has been fighting this case for ten years, since we helped bring about a change in French law to allow civil society to present evidence.
The verdict is a huge victory against impunity, and a signal to corrupt leaders everywhere that they can’t hide their ill-gotten gains abroad. Next, we’ll be fighting to ensure that Obiang’s confiscated assets go back to their rightful owners: the people of Equatorial Guinea.
We had another important legal victory in a case brought by Transparency International Hungary. The country’s highest court ruled that special donations given to sports clubs in lieu of corporate tax counted as public money – and should therefore be open to public scrutiny.
US$1 billion has gone missing from the state treasury since the programme began in 2011. The biggest winner? Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s own hometown football club.
Meanwhile in Italy, a whistleblower’s courage led to the conviction of the former President of Ferrovie Nord Milano (FNM), the second largest railway company in Italy.
He was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison for embezzlement and fraud after the court found that he had taken company money for personal use.
We’ve been involved in the case as a civil party, and the ruling sets an important precedent: companies that receive public money should be subject to same anti-corruption rules as public administrations.
Speaking of whistleblowing, the European Parliament voted for the European Commission to propose EU-wide whistleblower protection legislation – something for which we’ve been advocating for years. |
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News from Transparency International
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Obiang verdict: guilty of corruption. Before the verdict was announced we interviewed Delfin Mocache Massoko, a key witness in the case, to find out what the trial means to him and the citizens of Equatorial Guinea. |
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Anti-corruption agencies (ACAs) are key to the fight against corruption. They need to be independent, publicly accountable and well-funded and staffed. In a report launched in Bangkok this week, we published research into the strengths and weaknesses of ACAs in six Asian countries. |
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Ahead of this morning's Obiang verdict, Transparency International France released a plan for ensuring that money seized in cases of grand corruption returns to its rightful owners. |
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