This academic article is based on the Report of the “High-Level Panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency, and Integrity for Achieving the 2030 Agenda” which has been published under the title of ‘FINANCIAL INTEGRITY FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT’ published by Financial Accountability, Transparency, and Integrity (FACTI), February 2021. It may be mentioned here that The FACTI Panel is the high-level panel on International Financial Accountability, Transparency, and Integrity for achieving the 2030 Agenda. It aims to improve the world’s chances of achieving sustainable development by making recommendations that both strengthen current efforts to combat illicit financial flows and close remaining gaps in the international system (www.factipanel.org/about).
The recommendations by the FACTI PANEL consist of ACCOUNTABILITY, LEGITIMACY, TRANSPARENCY, FAIRNESS, ENABLERS, NON-STATE ACTORS, INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION, DYNAMISM, CAPACITY BUILDING, DATA, IMPLEMENTATION REVIEW, NATIONAL GOVERNANCE, and GLOBAL GOVERNANCE. The Government of Norway has provided funding to support the work of the FACTI Panel. The Trust Fund of the 74th President of the General Assembly provided services in kind to the Panel. I am based on the Report just placing the points for the benefit of readers, academicians, researchers, and others so that they can get an idea in this regard. Anyway, the credit fully goes to the FACTI PANEL Report.
Under the sub-title of ACCOUNTABILITY the points are:
1A: All countries should enact legislation providing for the widest possible range of legal tools to pursue cross-border financial crimes.
1B: The international community should develop and agree on common international standards for settlements in cross-border corruption cases.
1C: Businesses should hold accountable all executives, staff, and board members who foster or tolerate illicit financial flows in the name of their businesses.
2. In the case of LEGITIMACY, it has been mentioned that International tax norms, particularly tax transparency standards, should be established through an open and inclusive legal instrument with universal participation; to that end, the international community should initiate a process for a UN Tax Convention.
The points under the TRANSPARENCY are:
3A: International anti-money-laundering standards should require that all countries create a centralized registry for holding beneficial ownership information on all legal vehicles. The standards should encourage countries to make the information public.
3B: Improve tax transparency by having all private multinational entities publish accounting and financial information on a country-by-country basis.
3C: Building on existing voluntary efforts, all countries should strengthen public procurement and contracting transparency, including transparency of emergency measures taken to respond to COVID-19.
The recommendations under FAIRNESS are:
4A: Taxpayers, especially multinational corporations, should pay their fair share of taxes. The UN Tax Convention should provide for effective capital gains taxation. Taxation must be equitably applied to services delivered digitally. This requires taxing multinational corporations based on group global profit.
4B: Create fairer rules and stronger incentives to combat tax competition, tax avoidance, and tax evasion, starting with an agreement on a global minimum corporate tax.
4C: Create an impartial and fair mechanism to resolve international tax disputes, under the UN Tax Convention.
5A: Create a multilateral mediation mechanism to fairly assist countries in resolving difficulties on international asset recovery and return, and to strengthen compensation.
5B: Escrow accounts, managed by regional development banks, should be used to manage frozen/seized assets until they can be legally returned.
The recommendations under ENABLERS are:
6A: The Governments should develop and agree on global standards/guidelines for financial, legal, accounting, and other relevant professionals, with the input of the international community.
6B: Governments should adopt global standards for professionals into appropriate national regulation and supervision frameworks.
The recommendations under NON-STATE ACTORS include the following:
7A: The international community should develop minimum standards of protection for human rights defenders, anti-corruption advocates, investigative journalists, and whistle-blowers. States should consider incorporating these standards in a legally binding international instrument.
7B: Civil society should be included in international policy-making forums in an effective and efficient manner.
The recommendations under INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION are:
8A: End information sharing asymmetries in relation to information shared for tax purposes, so that all countries can receive information.
8B: Enable free exchange of information at the national level as standard practice to combat all varieties of illicit flows.
8C: Promote exchange of information internationally among law enforcement, customs, and other authorities.
The recommendations under DYNAMISM include the following:
9A: International organizations must provide timely advice related to IFFs so that procedures, norms, and policies can be updated regularly.
9B: Governments must dynamically adjust their national and international systems in response to new risks.
The recommendations under CAPACITY BUILDING are presented below:
10A: Create an International Compact on Implementing Financial Integrity for Sustainable Development to coordinate capacity building. Extend existing capacity building that tackles tax abuse, corruption, money laundering, financial crime, and asset recovery.
10B: The international community should finance the creation and maintenance of public goods that can lessen the cost of implementing financial integrity commitments.
10C: Strengthen the capacity of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to do research on anti-corruption, including in collaboration with other international organizations, with the strategic aim of improving the effectiveness of capacity building and technical assistance.
The recommendations under DATA are:
11A: Establish a Centre for Monitoring Taxing Rights to collect and disseminate national aggregate and detailed data about taxation and tax cooperation on a global basis.
11B: Designate an entity to collect and disseminate data about mutual legal assistance and asset recovery efforts.
11C: Designate an entity to collect and disseminate data on enforcement of money-laundering standards, including beneficial ownership information.
The recommendations under IMPLEMENTATION REVIEW are the following:
12A: Update the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC) implementation review mechanism to improve comprehensiveness, inclusiveness, impartiality, transparency, and especially monitoring.
12B: Update UNCAC and other peer review mechanisms to reduce duplication and increase efficiency.
The only recommendation under NATIONAL GOVERNANCE (Number 13) is Governments should create robust and coordinated national governance mechanisms that efficiently reinforce financial integrity for sustainable development and publish national reviews evaluating their own performance.
The recommendations under GLOBAL GOVERNANCE are:
14A: Establish an inclusive and legitimate global coordination mechanism at United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) to address financial integrity on a systemic level.
14B: Building upon existing structures creates an inclusive intergovernmental body on tax matters under the United Nations.
14C: Starting with the existing FATF Plenary, create the legal foundation for an inclusive intergovernmental body on money laundering.
14D: Design a mechanism to integrate the UNCAC COSP into the coordination body under the auspices of ECOSOC.
These points are presented here for the benefit of researchers for the further research study.
Dr. Shankar Chatterjee, Hyderabad Dt 14-03-2021
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