News stories by Matti Kohonen

LONDON, Feb 15 (IPS) - In late November, the UN General Assembly passed a landmark resolution signaling a start on working on a UN framework convention on taxation.

LONDON, Jun 22 (IPS) - The author is Executive Director of Financial Transparency CoalitionThe sanctions against Russian oligarchs who hold billions of dollars have mostly failed to have a real impact beyond freezing a few yachts and properties. So, what went wrong? Now we know.

LONDON, Dec 12 (IPS) - The European Court of Justice on November 22, 2022, made a ruling that reversed much of the progress we have made in a decade in the fight against corruption, economic and natural resource crimes, tax abuses and other forms of illicit financial flows across the world. In the ruling, the court declared invalid the part of the European Union’s Anti Money Laundering Directive that allowed public access to registries about companies’ beneficial owners (that is, the real people who own or actually control them).

LONDON, Nov 18 (IPS) - G20 leaders met in Indonesia in the midst of multiple crises, with 85 percent of the world population expected to face austerity measures and severe budget cuts next year that will impact the most vulnerable compounded by an insufficient response to the Covid-19 pandemic, with only 38 percent of relief funds going to social protection in global South countries.

LONDON / NEW YORK, Oct 24 (IPS) - Finance ministers of the G20 and the world met in Washington, October 10-16, to discuss how to navigate multiple crises, including rising cost-of-living, broken global supply chains, climate shocks, and the lingering COVID-19 pandemic.

LONDON, May 31 (IPS) - At this year’s World Economic Forum (WEF) at Davos which ended last week, the attention of the world’s financial and economic elite was captured by the war in Ukraine whose president Volodimir Zelensky used his address to call to “complete withdrawal of foreign businesses from the Russian market”, despite 380 of the largest multinational companies still operating in Russia.

LONDON, Mar 03 (IPS) - The war in Ukraine has highlighted Russian kleptocrats funnelling billions of dollars out of the country and investing them in London and other major global financial centres, prompting political leaders in Europe and USA to crack down on this shady money. Russian oligarchs are believed to hold as much as $1 trillion in wealth abroad, often hidden in offshore companies whose true ownership is hard to determine.