Press
New polling reveals huge public support for raft of reforms to improve standards in public life
28.07.2022 A new poll by J.L. Partners, commissioned by Spotlight on Corruption, finds that by huge margins all voters want to see wide ranging reforms to standards in public life. Support for change is strongest amongst those who voted Conservative in 2019 but no...
Triple whammy for the Serious Fraud Office as Unaoil bribery conviction overturned and two reviews of Unaoil and Serco failings highlight major shortfall in resources at the agency
21.07.2022 A third conviction in the Unaoil case was overturned on a grim day for the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), when two reports were also published scrutinising failures that led to the collapse of the Unaoil and Serco cases. Stephen Whiteley, a former manager at...
UK court rules frozen funds can be used to pay sanctioned Russian billionaire’s luxury expenses
18.07.2022 In a crucial test case for the UK sanctions regime, the Westminster Magistrates’ Court ruled today that funds frozen by the National Crime Agency (NCA) for suspected sanctions evasion can be used to pay what many would view as luxury expenses of Russian...
Uber files are a massive wake-up call for western democracies and the UK to get their act together on lobbying transparency
11.07.2022 Today’s revelations about the £76 million a year lobbying operation by Uber to swing government policies in its favour, and about the failure of successive ministers in the UK to properly declare meetings with the company, are the latest in a string of...
Partygate and other scandals are undermining trust in politics and democracy – time for a major reset
Sue Gray’s long-awaited report into Partygate has identified: “failures of leadership and judgment in No 10 and the Cabinet Office”, with the report saying that “the gatherings in question represent a serious failure to observe not just the high standards expected of...
ENRC v SFO and Dechert judgment
The High Court has today declined to grant the key demands sought by Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Limited (ENRC) against the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) relating to the conduct of its corruption investigation into the Kazakh mining giant. Today’s judgment...
Joint Statement: Spotlight on Corruption and African Network for Environmental and Economic Justice (ANEEJ)
Today’s announcement that the UK’s National Crime Agency has recovered $23.5 million of funds stolen from Nigeria by family and associates of former head of state, Sani Abacha, is very welcome. These looted funds were laundered through an intricate web of Western bank...
Statement on news that the UK government will scrap ‘golden visas’
The leaked news that the Home Secretary is planning to scrap the UK’s ‘golden visa’ program is highly welcome. For too long, Tier 1 Investor visas have laid out the red carpet to dirty money, giving kleptocrats, fraudsters and criminals easy access to UK residency and...
Half of VIP lane companies supplied PPE worth £1 billion that was not fit for purpose
11.02.2022 Spotlight on Corruption has established that 25 of the 50 companies in the government’s ‘VIP lane’ supplied PPE worth £1 billion that was not fit for purpose. This amounts to 59% of all money awarded to VIP lane companies for PPE. One third of the total...
Spotlight on Corruption’s Dr Susan Hawley signs letter urging Foreign Secretary to impose sanctions on Kazakhstan’s kleptocratic elite
Liz TrussSecretary of State for Foreign Commonwealth and Development AffairsKing Charles StreetLondonSW1A 2AH 3rd February 2022 Dear Secretary of State Targeted anti-corruption sanctions in relation to Kazakhstan We are writing to urge you to impose...