Ethics and governance in the European Financial centers

As Tom Lyons reported today in The Sunday Times, PAY-TELEVISION broadcaster Setanta Sports has slashed at least £17m from its tax bill by setting up a subsidiary in Luxembourg.

This will feed again the reputation of tax haven.


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What Wealth of Expertise ?

Further to my last article about the FATF Annual Report 2006-2007 that was published last 20 December, I would like to demonstrate to what extend the "generous gift" received by the FATF from Luxembourg is a threat for the financial community worldwide.

The affair is worrying as the FATF is publicly satisfied of the "generous gift".

BUT

We are exactly in the situation of a judge receiving with public satisfaction a "generous gift" from a litigant he/she is gonna judge.
We are exactly in the situation of a bank receiving with public satisfaction a "generous gift" from a client it is gonna assess in the framework of AML procedures.
We are exactly in the situation of an auditor receiving with public satisfaction a "generous gift" from a client he/she is gonna audit.

The list of examples is not exhaustive.


By accepting, the judge or the bank or the auditor would definitely compromise their ability to address issues freely, thoroughly and objectively (TI words). Additionaly, in many companies such "generous gifts" to employees are a reason for dismissal.

Like every financial center, Luxembourg does not like comments from abroad on the dysfunctions. Financial centers do not like comments on their internal affairs. I can understand such point of view provided that dysfunctions are actually corrected internally.

But because of local corruption and the fear to lose contracts or jobs, dysfunctions are either denied or hushed up and therefore there cannot be corrective actions. This is what I have demonstrated in many articles in this blog and the small size emphasizes the impact of dysfunctions.

What I have been trying to explain since 2004 with a project of research on ethics and CSR and many articles among other things. Unfortunately everyone decided to blame the messenger that wanted to change the risky behaviors for the sake of the center.


What's new is that with its "generous gift" Luxembourg has now exported its lax behaviour to the international bodies that are supposed to control fraud, money laundering and ... corruption.

We are no longer in internal affairs.

We are now in an international concern for the OECD, the IMF, Transparency International, the IFAC, the PCAOB, the GRECO : it is up to them to do their duty in 2008.

Let's analyse the latest report published in the French version of the website (Annual report 2006-2007).


18ème rapport annuel du GAFI - 2006-2007
20-déc.-2007

Depuis sa création, le GAFI dirige au niveau mondial la lutte contre le blanchiment de capitaux, et, depuis une époque plus récente, le financement du terrorisme. Cette dix-huitième année a été marquée par l'accomplissement d'importants progrès réalisés par le GAFI et ses partenaires.

For the English-speaking readers of this blog this means "Since its creation, the FATF has been managing at the worldwide level the fight ainst money laundering and mopre recently the financing of terrorism. This eighteenth year was marked by the achievement of important progress done by the FATF and his partners".

Paragraph 56 page 20 wants commenting. It states "Grâce à un don généreux du Luxembourg, le GAFI améliore ses systèmes informatiques, afin d’offrir à ses délégations un meilleur accès aux documents confidentiels. Ce système sera renforcé au cours de l’année à venir et le GAFI sera alors en mesure d’améliorer son site Internet ouvert à la consultation du public". For the English-speaking readers of this blog this means "Thanks to a generous gift by Luxembourg the FATF is improving its IT systems to offer to its delegates a better access to confidential doccuments. This system will be reiforced in the coming year and the FATF will be able to improve its website opened to public consultation".

We are not talking about the annual members' contribution as explained paragraph 57.

The report underline a GENEROUS GIFT by a jurisdiction where professionals focus on the growth and do not care of business ethics as demonstrated by the restrictive vision of CSR, which is limited to private sponsorship and may be a kind of money laundering.

The report underline a GENEROUS GIFT by a jurisdiction where, according to Transparency International, 6 % of respondents reported they paid a bribe to obtain a service.

The FATF is visiting Luxembourg next year. Some might see in the GENEROUS GIFT an attempt to be in the FATF's good books at a time when many people realise the strong gap between the legal and regulatory framework and
1) what is enforced
2) and even the FATF Recs.

Let's imagine what would be said should one discovers that an auditee would give a GENEROUS GIFT to its auditor !!! Even though the fact is public in the report, the FATF should not accept such GENEROUS GIFT on the principle, as such behaviour definitely weakens its credibility.

I am sad to see that neither Luxembourg nor the FATF are aware of that.