Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

The French magazine L’Expansion has published an interesting article to explain to what extent juridictions that were considered as tax havens (black list) or other financial centers (grey list, politically correct for tax havens) by OECD are cheating in their process of the signature of the required  tax agreements.

Many of these jurisdiction have signed with other dubious jurisdictions: one third of every agreement was signed with tax havens.

L’Expansion publishes an interesting table per jurisdiction that I have translated below.

Exclusive in L'Expansion -  Top false repented jurisdictions

L’Expansion does not take into account two other ways for cheating:

- the wording of the law to enforce the agreements, that may create loopholes;

-  the process before the legislature that may be a long shot to enforce agreements with a significant delay;

- recs to go before the courts

Luxembourg illustrates these behaviours to fool OECD and contracting jurisdictions.

Read last OECD report

I have posted a couple of articles about LIGFI to explain the reason why the initiative is not serious in the debate on business ethics and financial integrity.

LIGFI launched the concept of the Luxembourg Monthly Finance Lunch. As they explain, the purpose of LIGFI's Luxembourg Monthly Finance Lunch is to provide a forum for open and constructive dialogue amongst all stakeholders of the global financial sector and to give financial professionals, representatives of government and nongovernment organizations, and all others concerned by finance and its related issues, the opportunity to meet once a month and to share views and perspectives.
The first speaker late November was Luc Frieden,  Luxembourg Finance Minister, who spoke on "A political view on business ethics".
The second speaker yesterday was Yves Mersch, Governor of the Luxembourg Central Bank (LCB), who spoke on "Ethical and socially responsible finance"
The next speaker in January will be Claude Kremer, Chairman of the Board of the Association of the Luxembourg Fund Industry, who will speak on "The Investment Fund Industry in Europe: opportunities and challenges"

Three lunches, three Luxembourg people as speakers. I thank LIGFI to desponstrate I was right when I stated the body is customised for Luxembourg.

Most LIGFI founders are Luxembourg people, live and work in Luxembourg, in or close to the financial sector. Academe were not involved in the project team except Gilbert McNeill who seems to bear alone the project. He is the contact person for General Information, Press and Membership.

The Board of Directors and Executive Committee include neither pure Academe nor NGOs that therefore do not participate to the definition of the policy of the institute.

This may explain the reason why in a recent press release LIGFI only explicitly calls for banks, other financial services and service providers to the financial sector to join the association.

However should academe and NGOs join they would have ridiculous voting rights whereas those who have the money (financial institutions) have the most rights.

Critics and those who are not right-minded are excluded or will be excluded and lose their money

LIGFI ignores powerhouses like GFI or TJN in the debate on financial integrity.

Additionnaly, The Board of Directors has approved organizing in Luxembourg an International Conference on Ethics, Client Privacy and Tax Havens for the month of May 2010. It is felt that it will be time then, with in particular the G20's policy and the OECD's Global Forum's position detailed and clarified, to be able to fully address and debate openly and factually the multiple issues involved in a context that is not charged with emotions. Authoritative speakers will be invited to present diverse opinions and perspectives. The floor will be open to conference participants to question and express opinion. The proceedings of the international conference will be published and made available on LIGFI's website. The details of the international conference's organization will be announced in November 2009.

The details of the international conference's organization are not online. May be this conference will never take place like the one that was scheduled in December (See press release when LIGFI was launched).

Remember last July.

Luxembourg was congratulated by OECD for having signed the famous 12 agreements. More are actually signed for the frontage.

"Luxembourg  has shown that countries are increasingly prepared to enter into high quality agreements and to extend the network of treaties which meet the OECD standard (...) The process is working and I look forward to other countries following the example that Luxembourg has set (...) I commend Luxembourg for its swift implementation of the OECD standards on exchange of information. In three months, Luxembourg has turned into reality its commitment to fully cooperate in tax matters. I would like to congratulate Minister Luc Frieden for his leadership in this process", Angel Gurria said.

I and other warned OECD.

As far as tax agreements are concerned what do we have :

1. We had a draft law to bypass with the creation of a strange "discharging fine".

2. We have no law enforced this year which delays the implementation.

3. We had anyway professionals that called for not implementing agreements and go before the courts : "nous proposons de soumettre toute demande des autorités luxembourgeoises au contrôle d'un tribunal luxembourgeois".

By the way criminal liability of legal persons required is still neither enacted nor enforced depite two OECD injunctions last yeatr and this year.

I am happy that OECD and Angel Gurria are happy...