The investigative newspaper Médiapart, which is fast gaining a reputation in France for hard-hitting reporting, has a special report on Jersey, Britain's (and to a lesser extent France's) favourite tax haven. It is fascinating, not least because it explicitly references our work on the Finance … [Read more...]
Finance Curse
Video: how London fuels corruption
Anthea Lawson of Global Witness, speaking at TEDx in the British Houses of Parliament. Enjoy. For more on the British role, see here or here or here. … [Read more...]
Top UK politician compares banking divide to African oil separation
We've written plenty about the similarities between a 'resource curse' afflicting mineral-rich countries in Africa and elsewhere and what we have termed a 'finance curse' afflicting economies that are overly dependent on the financial sector. Britain is a case in point, with offshore activity a … [Read more...]
The Swiss commodity black hole: a bizarre new government proposal
From the Berne Declaration and Swissaid: "The Federal Council today announced its wish to close the Swiss gaps in transparency for the global commodity industry. But the entire commodities trading business may well be excluded from any future regulation." … [Read more...]
The UK’s ‘open for business’ tax regime: investment falls
We were going to do a job on this report but Tax Research got there first, so we'll cut and paste: UK corporation tax policy fails to attract new business as Foreign Direct Investment falls From the time that the current government came into power corporation tax reform has been one of their … [Read more...]
Quote of the day: the central question for the finance industry to answer
From The Economist magazine, in an article entitled Counting the Cost of Finance, which looks at a new paper by Guillaume Bazot of the Paris School of Economics, which complements U.S.-based research on finance to look at the situation in Europe. The paper finds, unsurprisingly, that the GDP share … [Read more...]
Quote of the day: on corporate tax policy making
From Martin Hearson: “What my clients are concerned about,” said my friend, “is political interference in corporate tax policymaking.” I found this quite startling. Is it possible that businesses consider corporate tax policy to be a matter for private negotiations between them and the government, … [Read more...]
Private equity: harnessing secrecy to fleece investors and taxpayers
The widely-read U.S. financial blog Naked Capitalism is running a fascinating post about the private equity industry, which involves the release of a number of apparently sensitive documents. The article notes: "For decades, private equity (PE) firms have asserted that limited partnership … [Read more...]
Two lieutenants of leading EU finance critic defect to ‘the enemy’
That's from an article in the Financial Times, which begins like this: "The UK’s Investment Management Association has poached two key lieutenants of Sven Giegold, the German Green MEP who has been a scourge of the fund industry in recent years." This is of interest to us for two reasons: first … [Read more...]
Credit Suisse and tax evasion: a fine is fine, but why no jail time?
Quote of the day: offshore London
From Britain's Telegraph newspaper, an article entitled Cool London is dead, and the rich kids are to blame: "Tax empty houses? Why, no. We wouldn’t want to upset some ex-KGB thug who looted the Kazakh treasury in the mid 1990s. We wouldn’t want to annoy a banker who “honestly” didn’t know he … [Read more...]
Quote of the day: finance, truth and bullsh*t
From SOMO, an article about how financial sector interests have sabotaged European efforts to regulate the shadow banking sector. Our quote of the day, one in an occasional series, is from Belgian Green MEP Philippe Lamberts, who accused other MEPs of ‘delaying tactics’ and said: "I am not a … [Read more...]
Party politics pierces City of London for first time in centuries
William Campbell-Taylor, an Anglican priest who featured heavily in the final chapter of Treasure Islands (except in the US edition,) has become the first political party candidate ever to win a seat on the common council of the City of London. That's a record that stretches back a thousand years, … [Read more...]
Bermuda’s offshore sector tells local dissenters to f*** off
From the excellent Financial Secrecy Media Monitor: "Earlier this year the offshore financial sector in Bermuda launched a campaign called “Everybody’s Business” which aims to “educate Bermudians about the importance of international business to all sectors of the community”, and is sponsored by … [Read more...]
A small but telling victory in London’s offshore housing crisis
Guest blog by George Turner One to the most pronounced and damaging impacts of offshore finance in London is the housing crisis. In London a home is no longer a home, but an investment product. The offshore system allows questionable money from all over the world to be effectively laundered … [Read more...]
