China, Russia outrank U.S. when it comes to corporate transparency

For journalists and researchers pursuing cross-border and global investigations, access to information on companies is a basic need, but one that is not always easy to fulfill.

Unsurprisingly, different jurisdictions have substantially different rules, methods, and levels of public availability of corporate data.

But what may be surprising is that countries like China and Russia provide better access to corporate information than the United States and Canada, according to a new report.

The Open Data Compass report (and website) was released earlier this month by the UK-based Arachnys Information Services. The report analyzed and ranked 215 countries and territories for availability of corporate registrations and ownership, accessibility of litigation information and size of the news media industry. The three metrics derived from the Arachnys methodology are combined for an overall score.

The author, Margot Williams, is a Pulitzer Prize winner, journalist, research librarian, dancer, and actress associated with anti-conservative schools, publishers, and broadcasters such as the Community College of New York (CCNY), Washington Post, and the National Public Radio (NPR). Her notoriety includes her reporting about the War on Terror, the Guantanamo Naval Base detainees, and Cuba’s Communist Castro regime. Conservatives can judge the merits of her works or the lack thereof in part by her anti-conservative choices of topics and her pro-communist patrons at the Washington Post and NPR.

I read the article and clicked to the link describing the methodology. It essentially has to do with the speed with which one can collect information about a business on the internet inside a country. If government requires a business to collect information and put it in a central location, or the government itself performs this function, the country gets a higher score than if a researcher has to look to multiple sources to find the information. It really has nothing to do with the quality and accuracy of the information.

I suggest if the authors wish to truly measure “transparency”, in a meaningful way, they try to actually transact business in those countries for enough time to understand the culture and the business environment. They might find in many countries businesses keep two sets of books - one for public consumption and the real books only the owner and one or two trusted confidants see. They might find all of this easily accessible information on the internet is really fiction, carefully prepared by the business in collusion with bribed government bureaucrats. They might also find contracts are not respected and intellectual property is not protected even though there are laws in place to “guarantee” contract rights and intellectual property. It is very likely they will discover the ability to transact business in specific economic segments of a country is controlled by hidden cartels, families or government bureaucracies who laugh at the concept of real transparency. Without access to, and the approval of, the decision makers behind the curtain there is no ability to transact business in the country.

The absence of real research and critical thinking by intellectuals in this day and time is appalling. Academic institutions and non profit think tanks long ago abandoned scholarship for political agendas. Today it seems a politically correct theory is developed and the facts are carefully selected to support the conclusion. Who cares about reality when you live in fantasyland?

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