German minister snubbed whistle-blower looking into state firm

German magazine Der Spiegel involves German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble in the Panama Papers case which was revealed last week and concern a massive data leak that has called into question the finances of the world‘s rich and powerful.

According to an article published on the weekly Spiegel magazine on Saturday, Schaeuble ignored an information request from an insider who suspected dubious financing at a government corporation.

The Bundesdruckerei, or Federal Printing Office, a Berlin-based state-owned company that manufactures banknotes and ID cards, among other things, used a shell company in Panama to do business with clients in Venezuela, Der Spiegel reported.

A letter from a whistle-blower asking Schaeuble and Werner Gatzer, the minister‘s state secretary who sits on the company‘s supervisory board, to shed light on the offshore finances was reportedly ignored for years, says europeonline.

However, now that the printing office is thought to appear in the so-called Panama Papers – a massive data leak that has called into question the finances of the world‘s rich and powerful – the German government finds itself under pressure to offer an explanation.

The Finance Ministry nonetheless gave no comment on the Spiegel report Saturday.

Spiegel said that the whistleblower contacted the company‘s supervisory board in 2012 and 2013 in an attempt to reveal what he suspected were cases of sham transactions and tax fraud.

His letter was ignored and a lawyer representing the Bundesdruckerei instructed the man to no longer to contact the board, Spiegel reported.

Since then, numerous investigations carried out both internally and externally have failed to find evidence of illegal activity at the company. However, a new probe has been launched into its business links to Venezuela – in one of the latest inquiries sparked by Panama-related revelations all over the world.

Source: europeonline-magazine.eu

Anti-Money Laundering: EU & Germany against transparency

“The EU is undermining transparency just as the Panama Papers reveal the criminal energy behind secret shell companies. Germany’s action plan is hypocritical in light of Finance Minister Schäuble’s long standing fight against real transparency”, comments Fabio De Masi, MEP and GUE/NGL coordinator for the European Parliament’s TAXE committee, the loopholes in the European Union’s 4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD) and the ten point action plan against tax evasion and anti-money laundering presented on Sunday 10 April by Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble.

Ahead of a plenary debate in the European Parliament on the Panama Leaks, which was requested by the GUE/NGL group for this week’s Strasbourg session, De Masi continues:

“The strong rhetoric of Germany’s Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble on Panama Leaks is double-speak. Germany, along with Malta and Cyprus and against the will of the UK, France, Italy and Spain, blocked any attempt to make public the registers showing the true owners of shell and letterbox companies.

Another important loophole of the AMLD will remain with trusts – the Anglo Saxon version of foundations – being exempted from transparency requirements upon intervention of UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who was just implicated by Panama Leaks for funds in an offshore shell company.

And on the transparency of beneficial ownership, the revised 4th AMLD opens up a loophole which did not even exist in its 2005 predecessor. Under the rules, a natural person holding the position of senior manager in a shell company, i.e. anybody acting as nominee, sometimes for thousands of letterboxes at the same time, can be recorded as beneficial owner, leaving the true ownership in the dark.”

De Masi concludes: “We need public registers of the true beneficial owners of shell companies and include trusts into reporting. The powerful in the EU and the member states must stop to aid the super-rich, terrorists and war and drug lords with tax evasion and money laundering”

Source: dielinke-europa.eu