Report on Tackling Transborder Corruption Launched at Webinar with Members of the European Parliament

On 30 March, anti-corruption fighters José Grinda, of the Spanish prosecution service, and Bill Browder, of the Global Magnitsky Justice Campaign, spoke at the launch of the report ‘Tackling Russian Elite’s Corruption: Mission Impossible?’ The Anti-Corruption Intergroup and the Friends of European Russia Forum of the European Parliament both sponsored the webinar. MEPs Daniel Freund, co-Chair of the Intergroup, Andrius Kubilius, Head of the Friends of European Russia Forum, and Ramona Strugariu, member of the Intergroup, took the floor. The webinar was chaired by NHC Programme Manager Joeri Buhrer Tavanier.

Both Grinda and Browder critised existing mechanisms of international judicial cooperation in cases addressing grand corruption. For example, Interpol will place anti-corruption fighters rather than corrupt oligarchs on their search lists. EU member states should not rely on cooperation with the judicial system of a state captured by corrupt interests, argued Anastasia Kirilenko, one of the report’s authors. They should find other ways to collect evidence and tackle the proceeds of corruption when they pass through or are hidden in their financial systems. Expanding the use of non-conviction-based confiscation could be one way to achieve this, as proposed in the report, said Harry Hummel, the second author of the report. Not all member states of the EU have spoken out in the past for EU regulations on the necessary strengthening of mechanisms, said Ramona Strugariu.

The recording of the webinar, starting just after the introductory words by Buhrer Tavanier, is available below.

00:00 Daniel Freund

05:25 Anasrasia Kirilenko

14:36 Harry Hummel

22:52 José Grinda

42:28 Bill Browder

54:05 Andrius Kubilius

01:03:08 Ramona Strugariu

01:14:00 Discussion