TJN Annual Discussion Workshop on Corruption and the Role of Tax Havens – programme

Discussion Workshop

Corruption and the Role of Tax Havens

#tjn16

City University, London, 28^th – 29^th April 2016

Oliver Thompson Lecture Theatre, Northampton Square EC1V 0HB

 FINAL PROGRAMME

DAY ONE – 28^th April 2016

08h30 – 09h00             Registration and coffee

09h00 – 09h30             Welcome, introductions and framing:

Corruption and the role of tax havens, after Panamania

Prof. Anastasia Nesvetailova (Director, City Political Economy Research Centre, CITYPERC)

John Christensen (Director, Tax Justice Network)                                    

09h30 – 11h00             Session One: Corruption and the role of (UK) tax havens

Facilitator: Liz Nelson (Tax Justice Network)

Discussant: Ronen Palan (City)

 Robert Mwanyumba (East African Tax and Governance Network) – Corruption Wasting Human Rights [Slides]

 Mary Young (University of West England) – Criminogenic risk factors in the UK’s financial secrecy jurisdictions

 Petr Janský (Charles University, Prague; joint paper with Alex Cobham and Markus Meinzer, TJN) – Financial secrecy since the financial crisis, and the UK’s secrecy network

11h00 – 11h30             Coffee

11h30 – 13h00             Session Two: Scale and structures

Facilitator: Moran Harari (Tax Justice Network)

Discussant: David Quentin (IDS/TJN)

Arjan Reurink (Max Planck Institute) – Contextualizing Financial Corruption: Financialization and the Criminogenic Structures of Finance Capitalism

Verónica Grondona (CEFID-AR, with Nicole Bidegain Ponte and Corina Rodríguez Enríquez, both DAWN) – The role of financial secrecy jurisdictions in undermining gender justice and women’s human rights

Michael Woodiwiss (University of West England) – The Evolution of Organized Crime Control and an International Anti-Money Laundering Regime

13h00 – 14h00             Lunch

14h00 – 15h30              Session Three: On the dark side

Facilitator:  Markus Meinzer (Tax Justice Network)

Discussant: Prem Sikka (AABA, Essex)

Jan Fichtner (University of Amsterdam – CORPNET Project) – The Anatomy of the Cayman Islands Offshore Financial Center: Anglo-America, Japan, and the Role of Hedge Funds [link removed as under consideration with journal]

May Hen (University of Cambridge) – Gatekeepers for global wealth: a fiscal sociology of Caribbean offshore financial centres

15h30 – 16h00             Tea break

16h00 – 17h30             Session Four: The Secrecy Professionals

Facilitator: Andres Knobel (Tax Justice Network)

Discussant: Richard Murphy (City; Tax Research UK)

Sophie Lemaître (Univ. Rennes 1) – Hiding proceeds of corruption and IFFs through the abuse of Law – the extractive industries example

Chris Jones (joint paper with Yama Temouri, both Aston Business School, & Alex Cobham, TJN) – Tax Haven Networks and the Role of the Big 4 Accountancy Firms

18h00 – 20h00             Royal Society for Africa & Tax Justice Network public event:

Illicit financial flows after ‘Panamania’: Seizing the moment

Lecture theatre ELG03, Drysdale Building

DAY TWO – 29^th April 2016

09h30 – 10h30             Session Five: Stories of secrecy

Facilitator:  George Turner (Finance Uncovered)

Discussant: Nick Shaxson (Tax Justice Network)

Sigrun Davidsdottir (journalist) – Iceland: The ‘offshorisation’ of an economy

Richard Smith (journalist) – On the trail of Scottish LPs

10h30 – 11h00             Oxfam & Tax Justice Network Essay Prize Presentations:

                                                Tax justice and human rights

11h00 – 11h30             Coffee / tea break

11h30 – 13h00             Session Six: Corporate tax

Facilitator: Naomi Fowler (Tax Justice Network)

Lauri Finér (with Matti Ylonen, both University of Helsinki) – Laws for Nothing and Ores for Free? A Case Study of Tax Planning in the Finnish Mining Sector [Slides]

Anders Pedersen (Natural Resource Governance Institute) – Assessing the presence of tax haven based companies in extractives contracts – establishing a baseline contracts available as open data

Omri Mariam (UC Irvine School of Law) – The State Administration of International Tax Avoidance

13h00 – 14h00             Lunch

14h00 – 15h00             Session Seven: The Price of Offshore, 2016

Facilitator: John Christensen (Tax Justice Network)

Discussant: James Boyce and Léonce Ndikumana (U.Mass), tbc

James Henry (U. Columbia) – The Price of Offshore: New numbers (40MB download)

15h00 – 16h00             Session Eight: Battlelines in the fight against financial secrecy

Moderator – Alex Cobham (Tax Justice Network)

Dereje Alemayehu (Global Alliance for Tax Justice): a global tax body

Steve Goodrich (Transparency International): transparency vs corruption

Nick Mathiason (Finance Uncovered): journalistic frontiers

Sol Picciotto (BEPS Monitoring Group):  BEPS and transparency

Rosie Sharpe (Global Witness): beneficial ownership

16h00                                 Workshop ends