Professor urges governments to review their anti-corruption policies

Wednesday 24 May 2017

A Cambridge University professor has urged policy-makers to review the effectiveness of their anti-corruption policies, instead of trying to tackle the issue by introducing new rules.

Jason Sharman made his comments as part of a talk at the Jersey Finance Annual Private Wealth Conference 2017.

Professor Sharman teaches International Relations at Cambridge University, and suggested there is a mismatch between the cost of solutions and the effect they have in countering grand corruption.

“Policy makers should stop introducing new rules and spend more time finding out to what extent the current ones are working. Often there is a real mismatch between the expense of solutions being proposed and the effect they are having or likely to have.

"Further, whilst there is a lot of talk from major developed countries about transparency, and public registers specifically, in a number of cases it is largely window dressing. Administrations around the world need to be able to investigate and access data, but the privacy of individuals must also be protected.”

Professor Sharman attended the conference, which was attended by a record number of 450 delegates, to discuss the findings from his research into corruption and the policies being introduced to tackle it. He was also present last year to give a presentation in which he analysed the effectiveness of central registries and licenced intermediaries in combatting crime.

Geoff Cook, CEO, Jersey Finance, said: “Last year our conference was held just four weeks after the Panama Papers were published and he was a rational voice in an environment that, at times, reached levels of hysteria. It was fantastic to have Jason’s independent analysis of the effectiveness of different jurisdictions in combatting financial crime. He has provided very sage advice again this year: amongst all the noise around transparency and public registers, he has urged governments to pause and assess just how successful initiatives are in combatting financial crime."