Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

Last 25 September 2007 , HMRC held a meeting with representatives of up to 100 financial institutions in connection with offshore evasion by UK bank customers holding offshore accounts.

HMRC’s pursuit of suspected offshore evasion by UK bank customers with offshore accounts is now expanding in scope, beyond the five major UK banks targeted hitherto

PwC has reported the meeting and especially the fact that HMRC accepted the legal constraints faced by some banks with subsidiaries in countries with banking secrecy laws, such as Switzerland, Austria, Belgium and Luxembourg and that the Isle of Man also has laws which could impede disclosure and the fact that there has been doubt as to whether HMRC could override foreign secrecy laws and force banks to disclose information held by a foreign subsidiary.

As Richard Murphy observed, when bank secrecy is used to assist crime (and tax evasion is a crime) then those countries that provide it are parties to that crime, and so are those who defend the secrecy arrangements that they offer?