Statoil Tops Transparency Poll; Gazprom Languishes Near Bottom

Norway's Statoil and Russia's Gazprom are among the best and worst companies in the world for transparency, a Transparency International survey has found.

The global NGO assessed the transparency levels of the 105 top earning companies across the world, measuring levels of disclosure from each and awarding the companies a mark out of ten. The 105 companies have a combined presence in 177 countries totalling a worth of $11 trillion.

The study looked at several factors which enhanced a company's transparency, including disclosures of where taxes were paid, their corporate structures and what measures were being taken to prevent corruption.

Norwegian major Statoil topped the study, coming out first out of the 105 countries. "Statoil, ranked first with a score of 8.3 of a possible 10, discloses information on revenues, taxes and community contributions on a country-by-country basis for all 34 countries in which it operates," Transparency International said.

The company was 1.1 points ahead of the second place.

Conversely, Russian major Gazprom came out eight from the bottom for transparency with a score of 2.8 points our of 10. This gives Gazprom a rank of 98 out of 105.

Gazprom scored worst in having anti-corruption programmes and practices in place, coming bottom place of all companies with a score of 0.