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The G7 finance ministers, at a meeting in London on 8th May, 1998, called for international action to enhance the capacity of anti‐money‐laundering systems to deal effectively with tax‐related crimes, with a view to achieving the following objectives: the extension of suspicious transaction reporting to money laundering related to tax offences; the permission to money‐laundering authorities to the greatest extent possible to pass information to their tax authorities to support the investigation of tax‐related crimes; and the communication of such information to other jurisdictions in ways which would allow its use by tax authorities.

This paper aims to assess the effectiveness of the Bribery Act 2010 in curbing corporate bribery.

The paper takes a doctrinal focus in assessing UK bribery law using both primary and secondary sources.

This paper finds that the effectiveness of the Bribery Act 2010 in curbing bribery lies in its approach of changing the basis for corporate criminal liability from focusing on the guilt of personnel within the company to focusing on the quality of the system governing the activities of the company. Companies have to address the risks of bribery or risk facing liability for failure to prevent bribery. With its regulatory approach to corporate liability, coupled with its extraterritorial reach, the Bribery Act is likely to change business cultures that facilitate bribery, thereby proving an effective law to corporate bribes.

This paper highlights the deficiency of earlier laws in tackling corporate bribery, examines the crime of bribery from a company law perspective and argues that the regulatory strategy in the Bribery Act is likely to be an effective tool against bribery.

Policy mobility scholarship concerning anti-money laundering (AML) has typically favoured the study of power structures and interests to the neglect of the constructivist perspective and the local cultural–symbolic driving forces of policy adoption. This study aims to redress this, by analysing the shifting ideational drivers of AML policy in Singapore over the past 31 years through a thematic analysis of Singapore’s parliamentary debates (Hansard).

Through a thematic analysis of Singapore's Hansard over the past 31 years, this study seeks to present a social constructivist perspective of AML policy adoption in Singapore.

The thematic analysis reveals how the internal driving forces of AML policy in Singapore have shifted, from the idea of “crime prevention” in the early 1990s, to the symbolic value of “international norm compliance” by the 2010s.

This constructivist perspective of AML policy adoption is particularly useful in complementing the existing materialist theories of AML policy diffusion and allows us to better appreciate the historical nuances of AML policy transfer across the globe.

This research will provide a useful comparative case study for other policy mobility scholars interested in presenting a constructivist account of AML policy adoption in different jurisdictions.

There is no literature in the field of policy mobility, explaining the diffusion/transfer of AML policy from a social constructivist perspective.

The growing use of the Internet, online hosts, electronic banking and bulletin board systems means that with increasing frequency evidence needs to be collected from remote computers for use in legal proceedings. Issues of the evaluation of weight still need to be addressed even if strict rules of admissibility are removed. The background processes involved need to be understood if courts are to be able to test evidential quality. The controls that should be in place are discussed and a series of tests of provenance and reliability are suggested. Such tests, however, will never be more than decision aids.

Sustainable development and the enhancement of justice and security globally are predicated on the existence of sufficient and appropriately deployed assets. Mindful of this, and of the misuse of both public and private wealth, UN Sustainable Development Goal 16.4 (SDG 16.4) seeks to ‘…significantly reduce illicit financial … flows’. This chapter critiques how this aim of SDG 16.4 has been operationalised. We argue that the choice and placement of the term ‘illicit’ is crucial: it can relate to the finances, the flows, or both, as well as to the people involved, as facilitators or protagonists, and is expansive enough to encompass criminal, unlawful and ostensibly legal but illegitimate or harmful assets, acts and actors. Moreover, this chapter explores why the movement of assets is significant, within and between jurisdictions, and how these transfers and transactions impact on sustainable development and can worsen inequalities. Our attention is on the conceptualisation, measurement and operationalisation of illicit financial flows (IFFs) in particular and the corresponding implications for available policy responses in the form of situational interventions as a more plausible route to understanding and reducing IFFs in the context of promoting SDG 16.4.

Money laundering continues to emerge as a transnational phenomenon that has harmful consequences for the global economy and society. Despite the theoretical and practical magnitude of money laundering, international business (IB) research on the topic is scarce and scattered across multiple disciplines. Accordingly, this study aims to advance an integrated understanding of money laundering from the IB perspective.

The authors conduct a systematic review of relevant literature and qualitatively analyze the content of 57 studies published on the topic during the past two decades.

The authors identify five streams (5Cs) of research on money laundering in the IB context: the concept, characteristics, causes, consequences and controls. The analysis further indicates six theoretical approaches used in the past research. Notably, normative standards and business and economics theories are dominant in the extant research.

The authors review the literature on an under-researched but practically significant phenomenon and found potential for advancing its theoretical foundations. Hence, the authors propose a 5Cs framework and a future agenda for research and practice by introducing 21 future research questions and two plausible theories to help study the phenomenon more effectively in the future.

In practical terms, the study extends the understanding of the money laundering phenomenon and subsequently helps mitigating the problem of money laundering in the IB environment, along with its harmful economic and societal impacts.

The authors offer an integrative view on money laundering in the IB context. Additionally, the authors emphasize wider discussions on money laundering as a form of mega-corruption.

This paper aims to analyze the money laundering process itself, how cryptocurrencies have been integrated into this process, and how regulatory and government bodies are responding to this new form of currency.

This paper is a theoretical paper that discusses cryptocurrencies and their role in the money laundering process.

Cryptocurrencies eliminate the need for intermediary financial institutions and allow direct peer-to-peer financial transactions. Because of the anonymity introduced through blockchain, cryptocurrencies have been favored by the darknet and other criminal networks.

Cryptocurrencies are a nascent form of money that first arose with the creation of bitcoin in 2009. This form of purely digital currency was meant as a direct competitor to government-backed fiat currency that are controlled by the central banking system. The paper adds to the recent discussions and debate on cryptocurrencies by suggesting additional regulation to prevent their use in money laundering and corruption schemes.

This article aims to constructively critique the new global methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of anti-money laundering regimes against defined outcomes.

With surprisingly little discussion at the intersection of the money laundering and policy effectiveness and outcomes scholarship and practice, this article combines elements of these disciplines and recent peer-review evaluations, to qualitatively assess the Financial Action Task Force’s (FATF’s) anti-money laundering “effectiveness” methodology.

FATF’s “effectiveness” methodology does not yet reflect an outcome-oriented framework as it purports. Misapplication of outcome labels to outputs and activities miss an opportunity to evaluate outcomes, as the impact and effect of anti-money laundering policies.

If the “outcomes” of the “effectiveness” framework do not match the crime and terrorism prevention policy goals of nation states, the new “main” component for assessing the effectiveness of anti-money laundering regimes potentially detracts focus and resources from, rather than towards, intended policy objectives.

There is a dearth of scholarship whether the global anti-money laundering “effectiveness” framework is sufficiently robust to assess effectiveness as it purports. This article begins addressing that gap.

This paper aims to examine how banks in Tanzania have been vulnerable to money laundering activities and how the banking institutions have been implicated in enabling or aiding the commission of money laundering offences, and highlights the banks’ failure or inability to prevent, detect and thwart money laundering committed through their financial systems.

The paper explores Tanzania’s anti-money laundering law and analyzes non-law factors that make the banks exposed to money laundering activities. It looks at law-related, political and economic circumstances that impinge on the banks’ efficacy to tackle money laundering offences committed through their systems. The data are sourced from policy documents, statutes, case law and literature from Tanzania and other jurisdictions.

Both law-related and non-law factors create an enabling environment for the commission of money laundering offences, and this exposes banks in Tanzania to money laundering activities. Some banks have been implicated in enabling or aiding money laundering offences. These banks have abdicated their obligations to fight against money laundering. This is attributed to the fact that the banks’ internal anti-money laundering policies, regulations and procedures are inefficient, and Tanzania’s legal framework is generally ineffective to tackle money laundering offences.

This paper uncovers a multi-faceted nature of money laundering affecting banks in Tanzania. It is recommended that Tanzania’s anti-money laundering policy should address law-related, political, economic and other factors that create an enabling environment for the commission of money laundering offences. Tanzania’s anti-money laundering law should be reformed to enhance its efficacy and, lastly, banks should reinforce their internal anti-money laundering policies and regulations and policies.

The high crimes of bribery and money laundering resonate vividly with the public, especially where politically exposed persons (PEPs) are involved. Conventional wisdom thus far, dictates the adoption of even stiffer criminal sanctions for perpetrators of such crimes to solidify deterrence. This paper contends that while this approach may be a viable option in respect of PEPs in Western jurisdictions, it is less so with PEPs in Africa, where their peculiar socio-legal antecedents have rendered the venomous arrow of criminal sanction a largely anodyne prickle. The paper further contends that only a paradigm shift away from criminal to tougher civil remedy options can effectively address the endemic incidents of a growing number of PEPs actively engaged in financial crime aimed at asset stripping the state for personal gain in Africa.

The paper juxtaposes empirical evidence from historical records with comparative regional and international approaches to establish some creative new thinking on the subject matter.

The paper makes an important, significant and persuasive argument for a kind of paradigm shift in the approach to fighting corruption by PEPs in Africa specifically …. It is quite creative in deciphering a major root cause of the ineffectiveness in most of Africa of criminal sanction as an anti-corruption weapon, and in pressing trust law and the principles of fiduciary obligation into the service of thinking through the reinvigoration of the legal battle against corruption in Africa.

The paper makes a significant original contribution to the legal and policy literature. The author also displays an impressively sound technical command of the relevant and rather pivotal trust law principles and case law.