globalEDGE Blog - By Tag: corruption

In 2009, Brazil won the 2016 Summer Olympics bid. Their economy was healthy, the sixth largest in the world by 2011, and the Olympics were expected to be exceptionally profitable. Despite this, with less than one month until the start of the Summer Olympics in Rio, Brazil may be experiencing one of their worst economic crises since the 1930's. Brazil has been declared a state of financial disaster, and has remained entrapped in a recession causing their economy to shrink 3.8 percent in 2015. A federal bailout of $900 million given to the government was insufficient to revert the crisis. Government corruption, tax exemptions, falling commodity and oil prices, and the Zika outbreak are all contributing factors to the economic turmoil.

The International Monetary Fund recently released a report detailing how much corruption impacts governments worldwide. This report, titled “Corruption: Costs and Mitigating Strategies”, follows Managing Director Christine Lagarde’s warning to Ukraine in February that the IMF would halt its bailout unless stronger action to fight against corruption occurred. According to the report, corruption in the public services sector takes out an estimated $1.5 to 2 trillion each year from the global economy due to stunted bribes and costs, lost tax revenue, and sustained poverty.

Over 68% of countries have serious issues with corruption, including half of the G20. More than 5.5 billion people live in a country with major levels of corruption. These are the findings of by Transparency International, in the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) for 2015, which was released this week. The data on globalEDGE has been updated to reflect the recent release, and is available to view in the country pages, along with our Database of International Business Statistics (DIBS). This year’s release featured 168 countries, highlighting countries which have the least and most corruption. The index specifically measures the perceived levels of public corruption, by utilizing and combining various data points into one score.

A group of five of the world's largest banks are due to pay a large fine after manipulating the world foreign-exchange market. These fines were brought to the banks by U.K., U.S., and Swedish regulators late last year after finding out that currency traders were using chat rooms to manipulate exchange rates. Included in these banks are JPMorgan, Barclays, Citigroup, UBS, and RBS. Many of the banks have come forward with guilty pleas, which has been unheard of in past litigations against such institutions, as most of the time banks settle litigation without any admission of fault.

In an earlier blog post, I discussed how the restructuring of China's economy by its government had the potential to affect other nations and impact the global economy. In this post, I will be discussing the economic and political struggles it is currently facing and how these issues are influencing Western nations. China is currently having trouble with its slowing economy as well as a tough anti-corruption campaign that deals with government figures and local business. Currently, the government is actively seeking solutions to these problems.

Recognizing Albania’s recent governmental reforms, the European Union officially named Albania a candidate for membership, the first step for the country to join the EU. The move came after Britain and France agreed to drop their opposition to Albania’s candidacy, citing new leadership in Albania that has promised to reform the country. Led by Prime Minister Edi Rama, the government has begun to fight against corruption and crime which has ravaged the country for many years. Police forces have started efforts to retake control in areas dominated by drug cartels, and the government has pushed for reform in the country’s economic structure.

Economist Milton Friedman once said, "responsibility... generally will be to make as much money as possible while conforming to their basic rules of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied in ethical custom". Business ethics reflect the fundamental purposes of a company and are extremely important for multinational corporations, especially when trying to expand their brands into new countries and cultures. As globalization further expands, multinational corporations find that business integrity is perceived differently in different countries and often poses a challenge for business expansion.

The Olympics has long been the venue where a country is able to showcase itself to the world. Just six years ago China threw its coming out party with the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics and this time around Russia is hoping to showcase its progress only a quarter century removed from Communism. Though one may expect this coming out party to be a grand opportunity to show the emergence of a country under capitalism it is shaping up to be a condemnation on how little Russia has come.

According to the first ever corruption report by the European Commission, the European Union (EU) is losing over 120 billion euros a year because of widespread corruption in many member nations. The report stated that the corruption regulations and controls in many countries are not adequate enough to effectively fight the fraud occurring across the EU. The loose regulations and inspection has allowed for much of the corruption to occur in local governments and communities in all member countries, showing that the Commission believes that corruption is a problem across the EU.

Last week the 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index was released. The Corruption Perceptions Index, or CPI, is an index of 177 countries in the world and their corruption levels. The rankings are based on perceptions of the country and how much illegal activity or scandals in the public sector exist as well as many other factors. Countries are scored in two ways. The first is on a scale from 0-100. A country that has a score of zero is considered to be extremely corrupt and a country with a score of one hundred is perceived as being very clean or not corrupt.

In terms of art, China is certainly in a buying mode. Meg Maggio, an American gallery owner with 20 years of experience in China, found that western firms are pouring into the Chinese art market nowadays. This year, China has officially surpassed the United States in becoming the world’s profitable art and auction market. The Chinese art market posted auction revenues of $8.9 billion in 2013. However, freedoms of foreign firms in the industry are strictly limited by Chinese authorities and competition has increased between local and foreign firms. This post will address the challenges that foreign auction houses are facing in the Chinese art and auction market.

Ernst & Young, a Big Four accounting firm, conducted a fraud survey across the Asia-Pacific region, finding that there is a large disconnect between company policies, enforcement, and execution that is obstructing efforts to diminish fraud. The survey consisted of 600 senior level executives from companies in countries including, Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Vietnam.

Back in February, a colleague of mine wrote a blog post regarding the European horsemeat scandal in which horsemeat was advertised as beef in supermarkets. He described the implications that this might have concerning the global supply chain. One quote of his that proved to be shockingly accurate was, “…that the recent events involving horsemeat are only the tip of the iceberg.” Yet another food safety scare has arisen in China, where people are getting served rat meat for dinner instead of the requested mutton meat. China has experienced other food scandals in recent years, mostly involving toxins detected in dairy products. These food scandals have resulted in increased international trade, especially with dairy products, and the much needed increase in food-safety regulation in China.

Charlie LeDuff’s Detroit: An American Autopsy is brutally honest. In a story filled with corruption, anger, and even laughter, LeDuff goes into detail about the crumbling of an American city, and what is left of it. After leaving a job with the New York Times, LeDuff comes to find what was once a city that represented the American Dream, now rotting and broken.

Earlier this week, my colleague Kyle Brown asked the question “Isolated Issue or Global Supply Chain Problem?”  This question was addressing the recent uncovering that many of the products we believe to be 100% beef, actually contain a fair amount of horse meat.  It would seem that this question has been answered relatively quickly with a new Oceana report released yesterday. Oceana is an advocacy group for the world’s oceans that has sampled over 600 outlets in 20 states over a two year period in one of the most comprehensive food and health studies done in recent years.

There is currently an ongoing investigation into a food scandal in Europe involving horsemeat found in beef products. Because of the bond that horses have shared with humans as companions throughout history, eating horsemeat is considered taboo in many cultures. The issue came to light when meat that was listed as beef in supermarkets in Ireland and the U.K. was found to contain horsemeat. This scandal poses a threat to international supply chains and brings up a very important topic: how safe is the global food supply chain?

Way back in 2001, Jim O’Neil coined the term “the BRIC countries.” These countries were to be the building blocks of the “post-American world.” Businessmen and investors flocked to these locations to see what the future held.

Fast forward to 11 years later and the story is a very different one. Uncertainty now resonates throughout the BRIC (BRICS if you want to include South Africa) countries due to an increasingly slow growth rate, coupled with widespread corruption, political failure and currency woes. This paints a familiar picture to some who witnessed the former “American Killers” such as Europe (1960), Japan (1970) and the Asian Tigers (1990) unable to sustain steady growth during those times.

India, the world’s tenth largest economy according to the International Monetary Fund, is seeing troubling signs in the short-term outlook. Recently, India has seen a slowing growth rate in GDP, increase in inflation to 9.1%, and a decrease in local investment. Many economists attribute these worrisome signs to the corruption and scandals plaguing the growing nation.  In recent months, the central government has been struggling to get the economy back on track.

If you think the financial crisis is throwing a wrench into your business plan, try running a distillery in Nepal. This article by Forbes tells the story of the Himalayan Distillery Group Ltd., or HDL, and their struggle to run a profitable business in the face of corruption, power outages, and kidnappings.