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FINROSFORUM

FINROSFORUM  //  The Finnish-Russian Civic Forum strives to promote cooperation between the peoples of Finland and Russia by supporting civic initiatives for democracy, human rights, and freedom of speech.

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Apr 20 / 12:44am

Foreign companies fight Russian corruption

by Kerkko Paananen

Foreign companies operating in Russia will sign a pact to fight bribery and corruption on 21 April 2010, Vedomosti reports. The initiative comes from German companies and the Russian-German Chamber of Foreign Trade. The list of German companies to sign the pact includes 52 enterprises, including Mercedes-Benz, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bahn, and Axel Springer. The International Business Leader Forum, the American Chamber of Commerce, and the Association of European Businesses will also join the anti-corruption pact.

The pact obliges signatories to reject bribery both directly and indirectly through donations to charities and political parties, or other channels. The foreign investors will sign two documents: an initiative on corporate ethics in Russia and another document on international principles against bribery drawn up by a working group consisting of officials from the World Economic Forum, Transparency International, and the Basel Institute on Governance. Arkady Dvorkovich, advisor to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, will attend the signing ceremony.

http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/2010/04/20/231830

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Filed under // Bribery Business Corruption Russia

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Jan 25 / 12:10am

Russia's campaigner against corruption

by Kerkko Paananen

Alexey Navalny already had a reputation as a rabble-rouser when he showed up at the annual general meeting for Rosneft, a Russian oil firm, in Moscow in June 2009. With a small stake in the company, Mr Navalny wanted to question Rosneft chairman Igor Sechin, a confidant of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, about management strategy and the lack of dividends for stockholders.

"I looked around and noticed a bunch of beefy-looking fellows sitting around me," Mr Navalny said in an interview in his sparsely furnished offices in Moscow. "I am well known in Rosneft, and they're not always happy to see me." Mr Navalny said he approached Mr Sechin afterwards and asked why he had been surrounded by guards. “He chuckled and said it was for my own safety,” Mr Navalny said.

It is, perhaps, no surprise that questions of personal safety arise wherever Mr Navalny goes. Cocksure and irrepressible, he has become Russia's most vocal and obnoxious minority shareholder, hounding the country’s largest companies with muckraking campaigns against corporate malfeasance and incompetence. Mr Navalny has a small stake in almost every major state-owned company in Russia.

http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100125/FOREIGN/701249805/1135

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Filed under // Business Corruption Energy Gunvor Navalny Oil Putin Rosneft Russia Timchenko

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Jan 14 / 1:28am

Kremlin cements corporatism

by Kerkko Paananen

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has given the country's business elite right to attend government sessions. Putin made the decision at a meeting with Alexander Shokhin, head of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), on 11 January 2010.

Putin noted that Mikhail Shmakov, Chairman of the [pro-Kremlin] Federation of Independent Trade Unions, regularly attends cabinet meetings. “Perhaps, for the sake of fairness, it would not be a bad idea to invite businesses as well,” Shokhin asked. Putin's reply was short: “I agree.”

RSPP participation in government meetings could be just the beginning of better interaction between business and power. The possibility of an increase of power of the wealthy raises some fears of a return to the situation in the 1990s when oligarchs ruled the day in Russia.

http://rt.com/Politics/2010-01-12/business-elite-government-meeting.html/print

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Filed under // Business Corporatism Government Kremlin Putin Russia

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