19 Corporate Crime Reporter 43(11), November 7, 2005

For the past five years or so, Glen Ware was front and center at with the World Bank’s anti-corruption unit. He helped form the World Bank unit in 2000. It’s now called the Department of Institutional Integrity. Back in 2000, Ware was starting from scratch.

His unit’s investigations resulted in 25 successful anti-corruption prosecutions in Europe, United States, Africa, and Latin America.

In 2004, most of his staff was raided by Paul Volcker to help with the United Nations’ investigation into the Oil for Food Program.

Now, he has reassembled his core group and taken them private – to Diligence LLC in Washington, D.C. Diligence still has the World Bank as a client.

Ware expects that within a year or two, major multinational corporations will be prosecuted as a result of World Bank investigations.

“I’d like to see some big multinationals taken down,” Ware told Corporate Crime Reporter last week. There has been much talk from World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz about cracking down on corruption. What will be the indicators of whether Wolfowitz is serious?

“Ramped up enforcement results,” Ware said. “The Bank does debarments. But you would look at the number and magnitude. In order for it to increase its credibility, the investigative actions should focus more on the large corporations who are the most egregious abusers. I’d like to see some big multinationals taken down. I call that strategic enforcement action. Based on what I see, and the commitment of the new Bank President, I believe you will see a more aggressive enforcement environment coming from the World Bank as well as the other international financial institutions.

“While at the World Bank, we started by hitting the ‘low hanging fruit’ and building a practice,” Ware said.“We were taking cases as they came in the door, to build the practice, to build enforcement results, to build capabilities. Now, it’s different. Now, the World Bank will have the luxury of picking the cases that can have the most critical impact.”

(For the complete five page question/answer format interview with Glen Ware, see 19 Corporate Crime Reporter 43(11-16), November 7, 2005, print edition only.)

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