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11/6/14

Corporate Secrecy: Do you know what your company is doing? - by Leslie Shaffer

The operations of the 124 largest publicly traded companies are opaque, with relatively few fully revealing their corporate holdings, financial information or anti-corruption efforts, according to a new report from Transparency International.

"Acts of corruption are very often aided by the use of opaque company structures and secrecy jurisdictions," the report said. "Comprehensive public reporting is a key component of the measures companies must take to address corruption and provide the transparency that is the basis for robust and accountable governance."

Transparency International studied three categories: reporting on anticorruption programs, organizational transparency and country-by-country reporting.

Just one company, Vodafone, managed to score at least 50 percent across all three categories, the report said.

Only three of the 124 companies studied don't commit to complying with anti-corruptions laws, but 68 don't disclose their political contributions and only 56 forbid "facilitation payments," or small bribes, the report said.
Read more: Do you know what your company is doing?

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