International and national institutions regularly put pressure on offshore financial centers and their clients to enforce compliance with anti-money laundering regulations and that in spite of the existence of bank secrecy. This paper discusses the winners and losers of such policies....

Full paper published in Journal of Financial Crime, vol 8, no 2, 150-155 (November 2000)The obligation of a bank as a matter of contract with its customer to honor its duty of secrecy over the information it holds presents a barrier to an efficient, competitive and informed securities market....

Tax whistle-blowers provide valuable leads and often offer unique insights to compliance challenged taxpayers. The IRS must act promptly when receiving specific and credible information regarding tax compliance issues when that information can be corroborated through examination activity. In...

This study analyses the cross border capital flows in order to verify existence and direction of the so called stigma effect: Is the soft regulation against banking secrecy promoted by the international organization effective? We test if the FAFT listing-delisting events are effective sticks and...

The conflict between transparency and secrecy is a particularly stark instantiation of the principal-agent problem in public law. It is the province of institutional design to come up with effective means to ensure that government actors act in accordance with voters' desires. Much of the time,...