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Business
商业报道
Corporate transparency
公司透明化
Measuring mud
离析淤积物
How transparent are the world's biggest listed companies?
世界上最大的上市公司透明程度到底如何
Clear envelopes have yet to catch on
透明的信封，要流行还尚需时日
ARE you cheating on your spouse?
你正对自己的配偶不忠吗？
If so, please stand up and declare it.
如果是这样，请站起来承认。
Total silence? What virtuous readers The Economist has.
全都沉默？《经济学人》的读者是何其品德高尚啊。
Trying to measure corruption is a bit like surveying adultery.
尝试去测量腐败的程度就有一点像是调查婚外情。
Those who indulge in it are unlikely to admit it.
深陷其中的人们可不愿意主动承认。
So when surveying big companies, Transparency International, an anti-corruption watchdog, asks a different question:
于是调查大公司时，反腐败监管机构透明国际问了个不一样的问题：
how transparent are you?
你的透明程度如何？
Its latest survey, “Transparency in Corporate Reporting”, looks at the world's 105 biggest listed firms.
它的最新调查“企业报告中的透明度”涵盖了世界上最大的105家上市公司。
It measures three things.
他衡量三方面情况。
First, a company's internal rules and procedures to prevent corruption.
首先是公司用于防范腐败的内部条例、流程。
Second, the transparency of its organisational structure.
第二是组织构架的透明度。
Third, TI asks whether a firm publishes detailed financial information about its activities in every country where it operates,
第三，TI将询问公司是否公布了每个它参与运营的国家中所做活动的详细财务信息，
including how much it pays in taxes and royalties to each government.
比如向政府交了多少税，交了多少版权费。
Most firms in the sample have strict rules barring bribery.
样本中的大部分企业都有严格的条例杜绝行、受贿。
The average score on this count was 69%, up from 47% in 2009, the last time TI conducted a similar exercise.
这项标准的平均得分率从TI上次在2009年引导一个类似练习时的47%提到了现在的69%。
Many firms also disclose ample details about which holding company owns which subsidiary, and so forth.
许多企业还披露了哪家控股集团拥有哪家子公司等丰富的细节。
Of the 105 companies, 45 scored a perfect 100% for organisational transparency.
全部105家企业中，四十五家在企业透明度上的得分率都达到了完美的100%。
On the third measure, however, most firms remained tight-lipped.
但是在第三项指标上，许多企业都守口如瓶。
This does not mean they have done anything illegal.
这不表示他们就干过违法的事。
Suppose a mining firm pays 10m to a government for a licence to dig.
设想一个采矿业公司为了得到挖掘许可，向政府支付了1000万美元。
The fee may be legitimate, but the government may wish to keep it secret, to make it easier to embezzle.
这项费用可能合法，但政府也可能希望在这件事上保密，让侵吞变得更容易。
A company that is completely transparent may find it hard to win any more contracts from dodgy governments, which, alas, control a lot of the world's natural resources.
完全透明的公司也许会很难从乐于遮掩的政府那里赢得更多的合约，然而这些政府却控制着全世界的自然资源。
Statoil, Norway's state-controlled oil-and-gas firm, was by far the best performer, yet it scored only 50% on this measure.
挪威的国家控股油气企业挪威国家石油公司在这项指标上只得了50%。
More than a third of firms scored zero; the average was a meagre 4%.
三分之一以上的企业得分为零；平均得分率只有可怜的4%。
Campaigners have long complained that money from oil and minerals props up predatory governments, and lobbied firms to publish what they pay.
竞选者一直在抱怨从石油和矿产得来的钱支持了掠夺成性的政府，并且游说企业公布出他们支付了的东西。
Big Western miners and drillers have taken heed: the top five on TI's list are all involved in natural resources.
西方大型挖掘与钻井公司已经留意到TI列表上的前五名都和自然资源有关。
Many firms, however, are reluctant to answer probing questions from Western busybodies: Gazprom, Russia's state-owned gas giant, scores zero on the first and third measures.
但是许多公司不愿回答西方好事者提出的探查性问题：俄罗斯国有天然气巨头俄罗斯天燃气公司就在第一和第三问题上得分为零。
TI's calculations are open to challenge.
这项评估受到了挑战。
Do Amazon, Google and Berkshire Hathaway deserve to be ranked near the bottom?
亚马逊，谷歌，伯克希尔·哈撒韦应该排在接近底部的位置吗？
Probably not.
也许不是。
These firms may not disclose as much as TI would like,
这些企业公布的信息没有TI期待的那样多，
but they are not in businesses where one is ever asked to bribe a cabinet minister to win a mining concession.
但他们所处的商业环境也并不需要他们去贿赂内阁大臣以获得采矿许可。
TI does a good job of focusing attention on a serious problem.
TI在聚焦重要问题方面做得不错，
But like The Economist's adultery survey, its results should be taken with a handful of salt.
但就像经济学人杂志的婚外情调查一样，其结果只应受到谨慎的参考。
