Target 16.4: Reduce illicit financial and arms flows
By 2030, significantly reduce illicit financial and arms flows, strengthen the recovery and return of stolen assets and combat all forms of organized crime
Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
Why shareholder democracy is necessary
Illicit financial flows run through listed banks and professional enablers. Transparency International traced 87 non-financial enablers, meaning lawyers, corporate service providers and accountants, across 78 African corruption cases. The SEC obtained 413 million dollars from Danske Bank, part of a global resolution exceeding 2 billion dollars, for misleading investors about anti-money-laundering failures in Estonia. The SEC also fined Wells Fargo Advisors 7 million dollars for late suspicious activity reports. Arms flows depend on listed defense manufacturers, where a human rights due diligence proposal at Lockheed Martin drew 32.2 percent support in 2021. Owners of bank and defense shares can remove a necessary obstacle: weak compliance and opaque conduct. Asset recovery and organized-crime enforcement remain state tasks, so owners are a necessary lever and governments must also act.
How this was scoredNecessary
Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes. Others must also act.
We have not yet written down the two answers behind this rating. Recording them on every item, so a reader can check the reasoning and not only the conclusion, is work in progress.
Every rating is the higher of two answers, one for what companies do and one for what they spend to stop the outcome, because the same vote reaches both. See the full method.
Sources
- How enablers facilitate illicit financial flows: Evidence from Africa, Transparency International, 2023-12-05
- SEC Charges Danske Bank with Fraud for Misleading Investors about Its Anti-Money Laundering Compliance Failures in Estonia, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2022-12-13
- SEC Charges Wells Fargo Advisors With Anti-Money Laundering Related Violations, U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 2022-05-20
- Shareholder Support Building for Human Rights Proposals at Defense Companies, Investor Advocates for Social Justice, 2021
1 campaign on record
Report on how the company identifies, assesses, prevents, reduces and puts right the harm its products and operations do to people's rights.
With School Sisters of Notre Dame Cooperative Investment Fund, Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell
Result: Voted at the annual meeting on April 22, 2021. Investor Advocates for Social Justice reports 32.2 percent support; ICAN gives the figure as 32 percent.
We found no documented change.
Related subjects on other maps
How this rating was made
Every item on every one of our maps is read against one question: how far does this depend on the people who own companies voting their values? We answer it twice, once for what companies do and once for what they spend to stop the outcome, and take whichever answer is higher, since the same vote reaches both. The score carries its reasoning and its sources so that a reader can check it rather than take it.
- Pivotal. Owners voting their values can deliver most of the outcome.
- Necessary. Owners remove an obstacle nothing else removes, and others must also act.
- Helpful. Owners voting their values help, and others carry most of it.
- Independent. This moves without owners. Other levers carry it.
The advocacy record on this page holds only what a source we opened says happened. Where we searched and found nothing, the page says so rather than leaving a silence. Where a campaign names a filer the source does not name, it says that too. Ratings are ours; the list of subjects is UN Sustainable Development Goals's, and we link to their original.
How we score dependency, in full.