Vulture funds are companies, often with a secret or hidden identity, which buy poor-country debt at cheap prices and then attempt to recover the full amount by suing the original debt holder. These companies often target failing companies, however, more worryingly there has been an increased tendency to also target poor countries.

54 companies are known to have taken legal action against 12 of the world’s poorest countries. The Heavily Indebted Poor Countries debt cancellation initiative has seen 23 countries complete the process to become eligible for debt relief from the World Bank, IMF and the UK government (17 other countries are still waiting to receive any debt relief). However, loopholes in this process mean that some creditors do not have to participate in providing debt relief and this puts poor countries at greater risk of vulture funds.

For example the Vulture Fund - Donegal International, bought debt Zambia owed Romania for tractors purchased twenty years previously for $3.3 million. Winning a court battle against the Zambian government in 2007, fought through the UK’s legal system Donegal were granted $15.5 million in return. That's a profit of $12.2 million and is equivalent to health care provision for 100,000 people. Debt relief is supposed to be spent fighting poverty not to repay and transfer wealth to private companies.

With the global financial system under scrutiny and reform on the horizon it is crucial to include measures, which will tackle vulture funds and tax havens. There needs to be both immediate and long terms steps, beginning with a outlawing of this kind of activity in major legal jurisdictions such as in the UK.