Complicity and impunity: an analysis of banking sector’s involvement in transnational corruption

Abstract

This research approaches corruption, recognizing the importance of informal transnational networks in perpetuating corruption. The general objective is to understand, under the post-colonial lens, how corruption is a transnational phenomenon. We conducted a qualitative research, analyzing documents on corruption cases involving a large international bank: HSBC Holdings Plc. The empirical material was extracted from the organization International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) and the British newspaper The Guardian, and it was submitted to the thematic analysis. The final thematic map highlights two themes that reveal colonial relations: the complicity of agents in the financial system with offenders; and the impunity of the colonizer with these same agents. The results point to a historical pattern of leniency and connivance between the Bank and criminals, with several accusatory processes closed with agreements, summarized in fines that, no matter how large they were in relation to the practices of justice until then, it did not represent sanctions that would inhibit any possible recurrences.

Keywords

• corrupção
• pós-colonialismo
• corporações