Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

TJN has reported that on the morning of August 5 there was a meeting in the Luxembourg foreign ministry between the Luxembourg Bankers' Association ABBL and heads of Cercle de Cooperation, which recently issued a study of Luxembourg as a tax haven. Curiously, they did not even invite study's author to the meeting. The issue comes from the author.

That afternoon the study was wiped off the Cercle's website and the Cercle was threatened with withdrawal of funds. (All member organisations of the Cercle have cooperation agreements with the Luxembourg foreign or development ministry, and the Cercle itself is financed 85% out of state money)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Source of the Picture: Bujago types and termiks'[termites] nest. (1890-1893)

New York Public Library, The earth and its inhabitants, Africa. Elisée Reclus (1830-1905), facing page 188

Author: Achille Sirouy (1834-1904)

This image is in the public domain because its copyright has expired

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the context of the censorship of the Cercle de Cooperation, I now have the answers to the questions I raised a couple of months ago when the LIGFI (Luxembourg Institute for Global Financial Integrity) was launched:

  

Will the institute be a tool to change the business culture or is it an opportunist ethical frontage for the center? 

 

The story of the Cercle de Cooperation demonstrates it definitely cannot be a tool to change the business culture and its launch was definitely a tool for the promotion of an ethical frontage.

There is no capacity to welcome "critics" especially when they lay emphasis on public and official dysfunctions that are the visible part of the iceberg. The word critic comes from the Greek κριτικός (kritikós), "able to discern", which in turn derives from the word κριτής (krités), meaning a person who offers reasoned judgment or analysis, value judgment, interpretation, or observation.

In practice critics are blacklisted in the Luxembourg business.

 

How the institute will handle specific issues in Luxembourg due to the small size: conflicts of interest that can turn into corruption defined as an impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle?

 

The story of the Cercle de Cooperation as described above demonstrates the standardisations of  the conflicts of interest and what I called last year the “system”.

 

Networks: There are many associations in Luxembourg, but the center is very small so everybody meets in the same associations and when there is an issue involving a member a couple of phone calls to fellow member may help to hush up the issue. Everybody in the network knows the issue but there is no need to repudiate the bad professional that is supported by the group. To consolidate the support fellow members may knowingly join a board with the member in question. The problem in Luxembourg is that it is visible because of the small size, which is not the case in a bigger country where the bad professional may move up to another state to join the same kind of association but with new fellow members.

 

Intimidation : This situation is met when people do not do their duty because they fear for their job or contract, or financing with the Cercle de Coopération.

 

Fame : This last type of situation is met when people may hesitate to do or do not at all do their duty because they do not want to involve people that gain a professional standing because of professional, political or academic supports (in a board, in an association...). In other word, the will is to protect the frontage of the reputation of the center and its professional in any case.

 

How the institute will handle issues relating to businesses that do not belong to the financial sector but may cause a collateral damage for the reputation of the financial sector?

 

The story of the Cercle de Cooperation demonstrates there is no will to correct dysfunctions that create the image of tax haven beyond banking secrecy (offshore, capital earnings of non-residents and the exceptional tax regime for corporate offices of foreign companies by means of financial engineering...)

The cercle de Cooperation was positive as it states recommendations based on the observations on the field depite figures that may be inaccurate : but how to be accurate when information in under banking or professional secrecy?

 

 

 

I do think that the jurisdiction has reached a point where many of its professionals and politicians are no longer reliable or trustable in the promotion of business ethics and will be responsible before the history for the collapse of the jurisdiction that cannot afford the same lax attitude as bigger jurisdictions.

 

Head offices of banks cannot invest anymore in this context in the jurisdiction.

 

 

 

 

Know more

Only right-minded experts are sought in Luxembourg

Luxembourg, a jurisdiction of censorship : evidences

 

 

The Spiegel has reported that Germany becomes tax haven for firms and wealthy.

 

A completely legal tax avoidance industry is flourishing right in Germany. It is an industry that thrives on the mistakes made by ministries and the parliament in drawing up tax legislation: millionaires and corporations use aggressive tax models to make themselves appear to be artificially poor, which is completely legal.

 

Germany is a tax haven for large companies," says Wiesbaden-based economist Lorenz Jarass quoted by the Spiegel. "People with normal incomes are being robbed.

 

Germany qualified in the “white list” in April.

So did France where there are similar advantages (les “niches”)

 

This is the reason why the no or nominal tax criterion is not sufficient, by itself, to result in characterisation as a tax haven.

 

The three other factors to be considered are:  

- Whether there is a lack of transparency

- Whether there are laws or administrative practices that prevent the effective exchange of information for tax purposes with other governments on taxpayers benefiting from the no or nominal taxation.

- Whether there is an absence of a requirement that the activity be substantial

 

This is the difference between France and Germany and other jurisdictions, that are actual tax havens where controls are perfectible despite a so-called regulation and above all where freedom of expression on issues does not exist.

 

Neither in France nor in Germany, would NGOs be blocked and threaten in their financing for reporting issues, as they were in Luxembourg.

 

 

Martin De Forest-Brown, director of international finance for the Chief Minister's Department in Jersey, recently published an article that is worth commenting.

The title was : "Don't demonise Jersey, it stands with the good guys on regulation".

To comment the list the list published by the OECD in April, he observes: "Jersey qualified as a jurisdiction that had substantially implemented the internationally agreed tax standard alongside the UK, US, Germany and France. But Austria, Luxembourg, Belgium and Switzerland, alongside Liechtenstein, Panama and Singapore did not. "

Luxembourg and the other jurisdictions that did not qualify in April will appreciate. But Luxembourg is now using the same communication as Jersey.

The point is the effectiveness of the exchange of information based on the OECD tax model.

The figures demonstrates it does not work.

 

 

Read Richard Murphy to know more