Confronting Corruption with Tom Burgis, Anneke Van Woudenberg & Lord Agnew Theodore

Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine has catapulted the UK’s dirty money problem on to the front pages. But is enough being done to curb this multi-billion-pound corruption problem?
Advocates argue that urgent action is needed to confront the scale of corruption that has bled through into everything from the UK’s legal industry, to its housing market and even access to the heart of British politics. The UK government has imposed new corruption sanctions and parliament is currently debating much needed reforms on tackling economic crime.
Still, though, it is unclear if there is the political will to finance the reforms and to strengthen the law enforcement agencies that are supposed to hold the corrupt to account.
Those who expose corruption or who have been the victims of corruption are often alone in facing down the powerful. A growing number of journalists and whistleblowers have been targeted with Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs), a form of legal harassment used by powerful individuals and companies to silence their critics through long and costly legal procedures. As for those harmed by corruption, few are ever taken into account or obtain any remedy.
Tonight’s speakers - key actors on these themes in politics, civil society and journalism -- have in different ways all highlighted the impacts of global corruption. The crimes may be committed by powerful players thousands of miles away, everywhere from Kazakhstan to the Democratic Republic of Congo. But the UK is a key player and the impact is around us every day.
#curruption #oligarchs #moneylaundring

[@Dstonephoto]

This is fascinating. I randomly bought Tom’s book a few years ago and decided to look him up on KZbin. The lack of media coverage as well as public awareness of the effective and insidious censorship mechanisms in place - especially in Europe - is one which I find as fascinating as it is troubling. Thanks so much for publishing this!

[@nycrsny3406]

Thank you for putting this up! Such a great talk, and most of all really eye-opening.

[@michaels8638]

Why are people apathetic to politics well when Labour are about to win an election with the ex head of the CPS , who is obviously aware of these issues and hasn’t stipulated any intent to improve our system in the manifesto or just verbally against corruption then what hope is there. You have to stop thinking like a lawyer and negate the current system to deliver a system that works, If any government was ever genuinely wanting to protect the UK people and businesses from corruption it could do so quite easily, 1/ open a new court of corruption, give it wide ranging powers of fines and imprisonment and forfeiture of financial gain, then in the new court legislation you stipulate any lawyer uncovering or gains knowledge of their clients corruption must offer that information to the prosecution or be disbarred for life, or deny acting for the client, if their client doesn’t plead guilty and is found guilty then the lawyers open themselves up to being potentially disbarred, this then means all lawyers are reluctant to plead not guilty and it all becomes a far faster process, any corruption by their clients is then admitted or those unlawful lawyers gradually disbarred thus leaving the profession far cleaner and it deters corruption from being conducted in the UK. to a defence which was never thought of Within the new legislation the prosecutors dictate the amount of time needed in a hearing for the prosecutions case and make it so the defence has only equal time to argue their defence case. 2/ Similarly for slapp you make a court of suit against defamation that have a time limit of 30min 15, per side, this shuts down cost and prevents huge lawyer fees, you also set a charge for any 3rd or more cases being brought by one party so they pay the court a £300k un refundable unless there income or wealth doesn’t exceed 300k , it means those that bring multiple unwanted cases are no longer clogging the system, and if so we’re generating huge sums. Within a few lines i bet these proposals would clean up many cases and deter corruption from being carried out in the UK.