Khadija Ismayilova is an award-winning investigative journalist who will be joining us by video link from Azerbaijan to discuss her stories, and the government’s response to them. She has been repeatedly jailed, harassed and defamed, but has continued to expose the financial dealings of her country’s ruling family.
Rebecca Vincent is the UK Bureau Director for Reporters Without Borders, known internationally as Reporters Sans Frontières. She is a human rights activist, writer, and former US diplomat. She has worked with a wide range of international and Azerbaijani NGOs, and has published widely on human rights issues.
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC is a legendary barrister, who was worked for dozens of campaigns over the decades. Last year, she introduced the Sergei Magnitsky amendments in the House of Lords, which seek to restrict visas to those credibly accused of gross human rights abuses.
]]>The Serious Fraud Office has had a big year. In January, its investigation into corruption at Rolls-Royce – which lasted four years, involving 30 million documents — led to a landmark deferred prosecution agreement and the largest fine ever imposed on a UK company for criminal conduct. In March, it reached another substantial DPA, with Tesco Stores Ltd, and in June it charged Barclays and some of its former senior executives with fraud offences. It has probes ongoing into Airbus, Rio Tinto, and other household names.
The fines add up. Since April 2014, the SFO has cost the taxpayer £216 million, but earned the Treasury £676 million – a return of £1million for every employee.
Then came the general election, at which the Conservative Party’s manifesto promised to “incorporate” the SFO into the National Crime Agency – widely taken to involve stripping the SFO of its independence. Although that promise did not make it into the Queen’s Speech, thanks to Theresa May failing to win a majority, the future of the SFO is not resolved. This is therefore a time of both success, and uncertainty.
At the Frontline Club’s seventh kleptoscope, hosted as usual by journalist Oliver Bullough, SFO director David Green will talk about how the SFO works, and what might lie ahead for the investigation of fraud and corruption in the UK post-Brexit. He will be joined by Camilla de Silva, who led a key strand of the SFO’s investigation into Rolls-Royce and was recently rewarded with the Bar Council’s Award of Employed Barrister of the Year, for what promises to be a fascinating evening even by kleptoscope’s standards.
]]>In April 2016, the OCCRP also had a hand in one of the largest leaks in journalistic history – the Panama Papers – which revealed the secretive offshore companies used by politicians, oligarchs, criminals and sportspeople to hide their wealth, evade taxes and commit fraud. The documents, obtained from offshore services provider Mossack Fonseca, again demonstrated that corruption and financial crime are widespread and systematic, and infiltrate governments, corporations and civil services – with the UK as no exception. Their prevalence is bolstered by an ability to operate with ease across many frontiers, and transparency remains their natural enemy.
On the eve of a Downing Street summit aiming to challenge cross-border organised crime and corruption, we will be joined by OCCRP co-founder and editor Drew Sullivan and others to discuss how best to report on – and combat – transnational organised crime and corruption, with a particular focus on the London link and recent Panama Papers leaks. We will be asking what the role of transparency and government data is in combating corruption, and what role journalism can play in preventing its occurrence and bringing those accountable to justice.
This event will be moderated by award-winning journalist Oliver Bullough – author of two books about Russian history and politics: The Last Man in Russia and Let Our Fame be Great; and expert guide for the Kleptocracy Tours initiative, which exposes money laundering via property in London.
The panel:
Daniel Balint-Kurti is a journalist and campaign leader of the Special Investigations team at Global Witness. He focuses on anti-corruption issues in Africa and has been at Global Witness since 2010, before which he worked on The Times foreign desk and as an Associate Fellow of Chatham House. He was based as a reporter in central and western Africa for seven years, from 1999 to 2006. At Global Witness he has investigated corruption scandals involving large Western companies in several African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo and Guinea.
Meirion Jones is an investigative journalist and producer, and former head of investigations at BBC Newsnight. He won the London Press Awards Scoop of the Year prize for his part in the investigation on Jimmy Savile. He also received the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Daniel Pearl Award for his investigation into the dumping of Trafigura’s toxic waste in Africa. Meirion has conducted detailed investigations on vulture fund operations that diverted debt relief from some of the world’s poorest countries.
Drew Sullivan is co-founder and editor of OCCRP. His work has been awarded the Daniel Pearl Award, the Online Journalism Award for investigative reporting, the Global Shining Light Award for reporting under duress, the Tom Renner award for Crime Reporting and many other international awards. He worked as an investigative reporter for the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville and for the Special Assignment Team of the Associated Press in New York. He has also served on the board of directors of Investigative Reporters and Editors and the National Institute for Computer Assisted Reporting.
Holly Watt has been on the investigations team at the Guardian for just over a year, spending the last eight months working on the Panama Papers. She previously worked at The Sunday Times and The Telegraph. She’s been nominated for Scoop of the Year at the Press Awards six times, and has received nominations for news reporter of the year and political journalist of the year. Holly was the Laurence Stern Fellow in 2008 and has reported from all over the world, including Afghanistan and Libya.
]]>