SVT has asked Alex Cobham, economist, author and head of the non-profit organization Tax Justice Network, which works for increased transparency in the tax area, to take a closer look at the document that shows that Volvo Cars' main owners have chosen to have three of their companies in the Cayman Islands and British Virgin Islands.

According to Cobham, there are two things you should be worried about when you want to invest in companies with links to the two archipelagos.

- Both jurisdictions are on the extreme side in how they allow profits to be moved around by multinational companies.

This is a risk even for investors, he says.

Aggressive tax planning

According to Alex Cobham, research shows that companies with aggressive tax planning over time do not provide higher returns, quite the opposite.

However, planning presents a higher risk.

- You have to hide a certain part of what you are doing and that process can also hide other things than just tax abuse, says Alex Cobham.

The second part that Volvo investors should be worried about when it comes to the two tax havens is, according to Cobham, the lack of transparency.

There are no requirements to register the real, physical owner of a company and the company probably does not need to publish any accounts.

- So the question you should ask yourself if you want to invest in Volvo is why has the Geely Group deliberately decided to register in two of the most non-transparent jurisdictions in the world?

What do these people want to hide?

Asks Alex Cobham.

Moves investments

According to Alex Cobham, it is not uncommon for Chinese company owners to move parts of their investments to tax havens to protect them from the Chinese state.

But in recent years, the communist dictatorship has shown less and less understanding of this type of approach.

- This creates a new risk for investors - that the Chinese state may eventually say that we are not very happy about this structure, says Alex Cobham.

SVT has contacted Li Shufu for questions about the tax haven without results.

However, Geely Sweden writes in an email that “as a multinational group of companies operating across large parts of the world, we always follow the laws and regulations that apply in each market.

We also have a clear and transparent process around this ”.