Pandora Papers: "Only international pressure can make things happen"
At the heart of the Pandora Papers, like the Panama Papers, we still find these law firms, like Alcogal.
AFP - LOIC VENANCE
Text by: Aabla Jounaïdi Follow
3 min
The survey called “Pandora Papers” brought to light more than 29,000 offshore companies.
Many of them were created through law firms, an essential cog in the offshore industry.
This umpteenth scandal will undoubtedly not put an end to it, according to Eric Vernier, specialist in money laundering and researcher at Iris.
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RFI: At the heart of the Pandora Papers, as with the Panama Papers, we still find these law firms, like Alcogal. What is their role ?
Éric Vernier
:
We are on a heavier issue than the Panama Papers, undeniably.
But the montages themselves still share the same logic and it has been around for decades now.
These are always firms that specialize in how to avoid tax, or reduce it sharply by identifying the most welcoming territories.
This allows companies to set up which will make it possible, on the one hand, to muddy the waters - the famous shell companies -, on the other hand to build tax optimization schemes and therefore to pay a tax which is sometimes close to zero, or even totally zero.
What will happen to Alcogal
?
A lot can happen.
Everything will depend on the strength of the international reaction and the will of the various countries - and in particular the first concerned, Panama - to act.
I think that given the scale of the scandal and its media coverage, the authorities will at least do something.
I do not know how far they will go in the sanctions, but in any case, it is obvious that it is impossible for them not to react.
In fact, it is often international pressure that causes action.
The scale of the scandal and its media coverage may lead to sanctions for Alcogal, which may go as far as its liquidation.
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To read also: The “Pandora Papers” reveal the tax evasion of several heads of state and government
In any case, we realize that practices do not change much despite previous scandals ...
If we look at tax havens as defined by experts and NGOs, we see that a number of states actually make a living from these arrangements and have made them a specialty. The Bahamas and the Cayman Islands have the best international specialists in tax and financial arrangements. When you have a specialty, it's difficult to change it. This is as true for a company as it is for a country, since the authorities of Panama had announced that they would work on greater transparency, full compliance with regulations. Even if the files [of the Pandora Papers, editor's note] go back a few years, they are subsequent to the files of the Panama Papers. Moreover, Panama is still one of the few countries on the blacklist of tax havens. Very often, whenwe show a semblance of change, when we scratch, we notice that nothing changes.
By their magnitude, can these revelations not advance the fight against tax fraud
?
I will continue to play the ominous bird.
In more than twenty years of working on these questions, over the course of the scandals, I have seen the same questions come back: will the scandal change things, make people react?
Will policies be found that will put in place effective international regulations?
Over the course of the scandals, we have an immediate reaction which is quite strong with major declarations.
And then over the weeks, months and years, the bellows fall back and on closer inspection, we find that not much has changed.
The proof: a scandal follows the previous one and it will continue.
► To read also: Despite the legal arsenal, there is a generalization of fraud
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