A slush fund is a fund or account used for miscellaneous income and expenses, particularly when these are corrupt or illegal.[1] Such funds may be kept hidden and maintained separately from money that is used for legitimate purposes. Slush funds may be employed by government or corporate officials in efforts to pay influential people discreetly in return for preferential treatment, advance information (such as non-public information in financial transactions), and other services.[2] The funds themselves may not be kept secret but the source of the funds or how they were acquired or for what purposes they are used may be hidden. Use of slush funds to influence government activities may be viewed as subversive of the democratic process.
A slush fund can also be a reserve account used to reduce fluctuations in an organization's earnings by withholding them when they are high and supplementing them when they are low. This type of slush fund is not inherently corrupt, but is nonetheless a form of earnings management that tends to mislead stakeholders about the organization's financial condition.[3]
Examples
Richard Nixon's "Checkers speech" of 1952 was a somewhat successful effort to dispel a scandal concerning a slush fund of campaign contributions.[4] Years later, Nixon's presidential re-election campaign used slush funds to buy the silence of the "White House Plumbers".[5]
Financial derivative traders for Enron employed a slush fund system called "prudency reserves," in which the department reported part of each trade's profit or loss to the company and withheld the remainder. This system was originally used to regulate the trading department's profits, but also enabled the company to conceal large profits during the 2000–01 California electricity crisis.[6]
Hockey Canada maintained three slush funds to pay for sexual assault settlements perpetrated by ice hockey players and other uninsured claims. Membership fees from across Canada were used to fund at least one of these slush funds.[7] The existence and purpose of these slush funds were discovered during the Hockey Canada sexual assault scandal in 2022.[8] $7.6 million in 11 sexual assault settlements were paid out by these funds between 1989 and 2022.[9]
Etymology
"Slush fund" was originally a nautical term for the cash that a ship's crew raised by selling fat (slush) scraped from cooking pots to tallow makers. This cash was kept separate from the ship's accounts and used to make small purchases for the crew.[10][11]
See also
- Caixa dois
- ISO 37001 Anti-bribery management systems
- Group of States Against Corruption
- International Anti-Corruption Academy
- United Nations Convention against Corruption
- OECD Anti-Bribery Convention
References
- ^ "Slush fund". Dictionary.com. 2025. Archived from the original on 13 August 2024. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
a sum of money used for illicit or corrupt political purposes, as for buying influence.
- ^ Law, Jonathan, ed. (2014). "Slush fund". A dictionary of finance and banking. Oxford Reference (Fifth ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-966493-1.
- ^ Wherry, Frederick F., ed. (2015). "Accounting, Critical". The SAGE Encyclopedia of Economics and Society. ISBN 9781506300887.
- ^ LaGesse, David (17 January 2008). "The 1952 Checkers Speech: The Dog Carries the Day for Richard Nixon". U.S. News & World Report. Archived from the original on 25 December 2024. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
- ^ Weiner, Tim (31 October 1997). "Transcripts of Nixon Tapes Show the Path to Watergate". The New York Times. pp. A1. Archived from the original on 28 December 2024. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
- ^ Fox, Loren (2004). Enron: The Rise and Fall. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 978-0-471-47888-1.
- ^ Robertson, Grant (19 July 2022). "How Hockey Canada used registration fees to build a fund to cover sexual-assault claims". The Globe and Mail. Archived from the original on 28 September 2025. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
- ^ "Hockey Canada maintained a third secret slush fund for sexual assault claims". The Gist. 19 October 2022. Archived from the original on 9 February 2025. Retrieved 11 July 2024.
- ^ Burke, Ashley (21 October 2022). "Hockey Canada moved cash from fund used for sexual assault claims to avoid encouraging more claims: report". CBC News. Archived from the original on 20 August 2025. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
- ^ "Slush fund, n.". OED Online. Oxford University Press. March 2024. doi:10.1093/OED/3865691292. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
- ^ Garg, Anu (1 March 2017). "slush fund". Wordsmith.org. Archived from the original on 25 March 2025. Retrieved 19 November 2025.
