April 2017 - Anglo-American University, in cooperation with Transparency International Czech Republic and the law firm Kinstellar, held a one-day international conference to discuss the latest developments in the detection of suspicious transactions. The event, which took place at the Anglo-American University campus on 7 April, brought academic, business and legal experts together to share their insight and knowledge on this increasingly important topic.
Peter Bolcha, Director of the Center for Applied Research at Anglo-American University and the main organiser of the conference, sees the linking of experts and practitioners from various professions to be a significant contribution to the event. “We connect experts from various professional fields,” he explains. “Their collaboration is becoming more urgent with regard to the increasing complexity and sophistication of current methods of corruption.”
One of the speakers at the conference was Lucio Picci from the University of Bologna, a world-renowned expert in measuring corruption. “In the field of measurement and international comparisons of corruption, we have been trying to enrich traditional ways of measuring with new methods that have been developed over the last decade,” he says, “and have thus come across surprising new facts about how corruption changes over time. This is crucial for evaluating policies.”
David Ondráčka, Director of Transparency International Czech Republic, also spoke at the conference, stating that measuring corruption and quantifying its impact are always difficult tasks. “Since 1995, Transparency International has been publishing the international Corruption Perception Index (CPI), which is based on expert surveys and provides one possible look at the state of corruption. Furthermore, we are also able to analyse and quantify financial fraud, for example within the framework of EU funds or in connection with the volume of money flowing out of public funds to tax haven companies.”
The legal aspects were covered by Jitka Logesová, Partner at Kinstellar’s Prague office and head of the firm-wide Compliance, Risk and Sensitive Investigations practice. “The low level of prosecution of corruption in Central and Eastern Europe (with the possible exception of Romania) is a real problem,” she noted in her speech, adding that it is quite difficult to prove corruption. “Criminal justice representatives and organs usually do not have enough information to initiate criminal proceedings. Closer cooperation between countries and academics who study the methods of detecting corruption could significantly improve the situation in this regard.”
For more information about the event, or about Kinstellar’s Compliance, Risk and Sensitive Investigations practice, please contact Jitka Logesová, Partner and head of the firm-wide Compliance, Risk and Sensitive Investigations practice, at and Stanislav Mečl, Of Counsel and head of the Czech White Collar Crime practice, at .