Property rights
Land is the most important asset in an economy, and in most cases is combined with capital. The basis for considering land as an asset rests on the system of…
Barriers to recovery of stolen assets
Over the last ten years, only one third of international asset recovery cases have resulted in returns, according to the preliminary results of a recent survey by the Stolen Asset…
Corruption — a multi-layered problem
Over the past four years or so, or to be precise, since the publication of the Panama papers in April 2016 corruption has remained the major political pre-occupation in Pakistan.…
End of offshore secrecy?
It was only at the turn of the century and around the time Musharraf regime took hold of Pakistan that the UAE became the favourite financial haven for our rich…
Neither run nor hide
Two terms with the World Economic Forum's (WEF) prestigious Global Agenda Council (GAC) on "Countering Terrorism" and given the nexus between corruption, organised crime and terrorism made it apparent that…
Unexplained wealth order
An unexplained wealth order (UWO) is an “order requiring a person to surrender to the State the amount of unexplained wealth of the person.” The seven countries that have adopted…
Twenty years later
I recently listened to a New York Times podcast titled ‘First Person’ in which journalist Lulu Garcia-Navarro recounts her years of reporting from Baghdad following the US invasion of Iraq…
Disclosure principles of ‘beneficial ownership’
It is common practice across the globe that anonymous shell companies are formed to hold funds or conduct financial transactions to disguise money trail of wealth accumulated through illegal activities.…
Our Broken Heart Syndrome
Science has long discovered that heart break is not just emotional trauma. It has severe physiological manifestations also. This physiological condition is called Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy or a temporary heart condition…
‘Beneficial Owner’
“Beneficial owner refers to the natural person(s) who ultimately owns or controls a customer and/or the natural person on whose behalf a transaction is being conducted. It also includes those…
