Articles for tag: Babis, Czech Republic, Korruption, Stork Nest

Subsidy Fraud, Relevant Markets and Presidential Elections

Former prime minister and now a member of the Czech parliament Andrej Babiš scored a victory only a few days before the upcoming Czech presidential elections. On 9 January 2023, the Municipal Court in Prague finally issued a verdict in a criminal case involving him and his colleague Ms Nagyová on charges of grant fraud and damaging the financial interests of the European Union. The court concluded that the acts of Mr Babiš and Ms Nagyová, as framed by the prosecution, did not constitute a felony. Hence, to the surprise of many, including Mr Babiš’ attorney, the court acquitted both defendants. The importance of the case can hardly be understated.

12. Januar 2023

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Qatargate: The tip of the iceberg?

It is strange that the European Union, which is so insistent that Member States and third countries should comply with the rule of law, does not yet have a binding global framework for implementing the principles of transparency and good administration. Unfortunately, thirteen years after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, legislative transparency is far from being ensured and Article 298 TFEU on good administration has only been triggered this year for the first time.

10. Januar 2023

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The Post-Truth about Corruption in the European Union

Even if the European Parliament has in recent years managed to get a majority to scold member states Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Malta on corruption it has a far more difficult time in controlling its own members. The current Qatar gate so far involves just a few MPs alongside EP vice-president PASOK Eva Kaili. However, Qatar paid luxury trips for several MEPs, although a few refused, and some more MPs had offered public endorsement to Qatar already. The European Parliament is the absolute sovereign of its own integrity. If it wants to cut opportunities by offering full transparency on meetings, access, expenses and travel, it can- good proposals have been laying around for years.

20. Dezember 2022

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The Qatar Scandal and Third Country Lobbying

The EU was given the worst kind of early Christmas present: a corruption scandal that has rocked the Union to its core giving ammunition to anti-EU populist actors and drawing attention and schadenfreude from outside the EU. The facts of the case remain under investigation, but the case has already been approached from many angles.Qatar has been given the role of an international villain in this story, and the EU has used the opportunities to frame the case as malign third country efforts to corrupt the EU. While there is no denying the corrupting role of a third country, the EU’s framing enables it to pose as a victim, which, as I argue in this blogpost, is intellectually dishonest and harmful.

15. Dezember 2022

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How NOT to Be an Independent Agency

The Hungarian government is trying to convince EU institutions that it is taking adequate steps to ensure proper spending of EU funds going forward. At the center of this effort is a new ‘Integrity Authority’. The law establishing this authority, Bill T/1260, just passed the Hungarian Parliament on 3 October 2022. We have carefully read the laws enacted so far that establish a new anti-corruption framework and can confidently say that neither the Commission nor the Council should accept what the Hungarian government is offering because the proposed changes do not begin to alter business as usual in Hungary. In this blogpost, we will analyze the ‘Integrity Authority’ which forms the centerpiece of the government’s program, showing that it is not independent from the government nor are its powers real.

6. Oktober 2022

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Eroding Indonesian Local Democracy

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Under the administration of President Joko Widodo (Jokowi), Indonesia undergoes a period of democratic decay and constitutional demise. In a recent example, there will be at least 170 interim regional heads leading their regions without any constitutional democratic legitimacy until the next General Elections in 2024, if the current malpractice by the Ministry of Home Affairs remains unchanged. Like the climate crisis, democratic backsliding is not some future grim prospect, but has already arrived and is well-underway.

27. September 2022

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The Interplay Between International and National Institutions in Fighting Corruption

The topic of corruption plays a particular role in the international investment regime, as is evidenced by the large number of corruption-based investment cases and the abundant literature on this topic. This blog post discusses the role of arbitral tribunals and local institutions (notably courts and bar associations) in addressing the challenges of corruption by focusing on the so called Piero Foresti, Laura de Carli & Others v. The Republic of South Africa case (hereinafter, the Foresti case). I argue that the reaction of the arbitral tribunal to the allegation of corruption is unsatisfactory and that international and national institutions should operate in complementarity given the transnational nature of the phenomenon of corruption.

23. Dezember 2021

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Effective Accountability Mechanisms in Austrian Constitutional Culture

Former Austrian chancellor Sebastian Kurz, who dominated the political arena in the last years, left politics at the begin of December 2021. The strengthening of two constitutional accountability mechanisms strongly contributed to this downfall: First, the competence to establish a parliamentary committee of inquiry without a parliamentary majority, and second, the strengthening of the public prosecutors' independence.

20. Dezember 2021

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Fighting Corruption with Criminal Law

Criminal law serves as the primary tool of choice in Germany's combat against corruption. Yet, apart from the truism that merely tightening the penal framework to combat corruption is useless anyway, there remain deficits. This blog post argues that some of those deficits are to be found not on the level of law in action, but in the law in the books.

17. Dezember 2021

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Whistleblowing to a Latin Tune

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When the anti-corruption systems whistleblowed to a Latin tune recently, the resulting sound was remarkably ugly. It was loud, as the Odebrecht, Petrobras, and J&F cases revealed a wide-spread, refined system of corruption involving prominent politicians and businesspeople in 12 countries from Latin America and Africa named as “Operation Car Wash”. But the sound was also dissonant, as it played tunes that did not represent the patterns of justice expected from the Latin legal systems. That sound had a peculiar U.S. American accent.

10. Dezember 2021

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