NGO pushes G8 on company ownership transparency
From globalpost
Transparency campaigners Global Witness (NGO) on Thursday urged the G8 to take the leak of records from offshore tax havens as a wake-up call and require the names of company owners to be made public.
The London-based non-governmental organization said such a change could help reduce corruption.
Millions of emails and leaked records from offshore tax havens have exposed the identities of thousands of holders of offshore accounts, The Guardian and Le Monde newspapers said Thursday.
The investigation they published was carried out by a variety of media organisations in conjunction with the Washington-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
“This revelation of the extent of financial secrecy should act as a wake-up call to us all,” said Global Witness spokesman Stuart McWilliam.
“Hidden company ownership enables corruption, state looting and dodgy deals that directly deplete state budgets and entrench poverty. Arms traffickers, drug dealers, and corrupt politicians all use shell companies to carry out their illicit activity.
“It is not just offshore centres that facilitate this sort of secrecy. Lawyers, banks and company service providers in the UK and US are expert at providing anonymity to those who can pay.
“By requiring the names of the ultimate beneficial owners of all companies to be made public, G8 leaders could provide a huge boost to efforts to reduce corruption and financial crime globally and to promote development worldwide. There is no excuse for them not to act.
The information came from a leak of two million documents and emails which mainly concern the British Virgin Islands, but also the Cayman Islands.
British newspaper The Guardian said there was no suggestion that any of the individuals named in the report behaved unlawfully.
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Offshore accounts: world fiscal scandal explodes – Press, celebrities, politicians among owners of companies
(ANSAmed) – ROME, APRIL 4 – The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) on Wednesday published a report listing elite offshore account holders from around the world in what media are already calling ”a planetary fiscal scandal”, or the Offshoreleaks scandal involving French, Italian, and Spanish vips among many others.
French daily Le Monde on Thursday picked up on the ICIJ report showing that publisher and Hollande campaign treasurer Jean-Marc Augier, 59, owns shares in two offshore companies in the Cayman Islands through a financial holding company called Eurane. One of these offshore companies is International Bookstores Ltd, founded on the Caymans in 2005.
Baroness Carmen Thyssen-Bornemisza, the biggest Spanish art collector, is also on the ICIJ list for allegedly using offshore companies to buy art on the sly, The Guardian newspaper wrote on Thursday. (ANSAmed).
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