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The RIFF dataset launch: 30-years of financial secrecy and AML reform trends
December 11 @ 8:00 am - 9:00 am
Join us for the launch of the groundbreaking Regulation of Illicit Financial Flows (RIFF) dataset.
Join us for the launch of the groundbreaking Regulation of Illicit Financial Flows (RIFF) dataset—the most comprehensive resource to date tracking long-term change in the global IFF regulatory landscape. Developed with support from the GI ACE programme and the Tax Justice Network, the RIFF dataset provides annual data on 23 regulatory indicators across 70 jurisdictions from 1990 to 2020. This session will explore key findings, including trends in anti-money laundering (AML), countering the financing of terrorism (CFT), and beneficial ownership transparency. Discover how international regulatory convergence is reshaping the IFF regulatory landscape in some areas, while key gaps persist in others. Ideal for policymakers, researchers, and civil society organizations aiming to deepen their understanding of efforts to combat illicit financial flows and boost financial transparency.
About the Speakers
Daniel Haberly is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex, and the co-author of Sticky Power: Global Financial Networks in the World Economy (Oxford University Press). His work examines the architecture, evolution and governance of global financial networks, and in particular offshore and illicit financial networks. Since 2019 he has been the principal investigator in three phases of a UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office-funded Governance and Integrity Anti-Corruption Evidence (GI-ACE) project which has systematically mapped and analyzed multiple types of illicit global financial networks and related global regulatory regimes.
Alex Cobham is an economist and chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, and recently served as a Commissioner for the Scottish Government’s Poverty and Inequality Commission. Alex’s research has focused on illicit financial flows, effective taxation for development, and inequalities, variously at Oxford University, Christian Aid, Save the Children, and the Center for Global Development, and he has consulted widely, including for UNCTAD, the UN Economic Commission for Africa, the UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia, DFID, and the World Bank. Published books include The Uncounted (Polity Press) and Estimating Illicit Financial Flows: A Critical Guide to the Data, Methodologies, and Findings, with Petr Janský (Oxford University Press, open access). His new book, What Do We Know and What Should We Do About… Tax Justice? is published by SAGE.
Liz David-Barrett is Professor of Governance and Integrity at the University of Sussex and Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption. Her research focuses on corruption risks at the interface of business and government, including in state capture, public procurement and bribery in international business – and on approaches to countering these risks, including transnational governance networks in law enforcement and investigative journalism.
Recent co-edited books include the Dictionary of Corruption (2023, Agenda, with Robert Barrington, Rebecca Dobson Phillips and Georgia Garrod) and Understanding Corruption: How Corruption Works in Practice (2022, Agenda, with Robert Barrington, Sam Power and Dan Hough). Liz engages widely with anti-corruption practitioners globally, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, the Caribbean and Europe, and has advised the UK government and the G20 on their international anti-corruption work.
Before becoming an academic, Liz worked as a journalist in the Balkans for The Economist and Financial Times. In 2022-23, she was Head of the Global Programme on Measuring Corruption at the International Anti-Corruption Academy. She has a DPhil, MSc and MA from the University of Oxford and an MA from the University of London.