Investigating Business and Finance

Why Investigate Businesses?

Why Investigate Businesses?• Corruption is a two sided coin, while politicians are being

bribed, who is doing the bribing?• ‘sharp practices’ that should be brought to light• Consumers being mistreated • Various business links i.e. Siteserv, DOB and IW• Business getting preferential treatment from state, i.e.

contracts, bailouts etc• Bad conditions for staff• Environmental damage ie Greyhound• Tax Dodging: • Business sponsoring politicians (legal and illegal)• Business can bring about financial collapse with social

consequences, cutbacks etc

Watchdog or Lapdog• A Key critique of international Journalism including Ireland is that the Media Failed in its watchdog role in reporting the issues leading to the crash.

Why is this so?

Watchdog or Lapdog• A Key critique of international Journalism including Ireland is that the Media Failed in its watchdog role in reporting the issues leading to the crash.

Why is this so?

• Ideology – Neo-liberal or market led ideology dominant• - based on Hayek et. al. a neo-classical belief that markets are ‘self-regulating’

(Say’s Law).• Sean Phelan, Henry Silke, Julien Mercille found evidence of institutional,

ideological bias.• Sources – Reliance on narrow source base• Issues of ownership• Class basis of financial journalists, D4 centric, • Separation on business news from news including different standards of critique,

ideological (business news not economics).

How to Investigate Business• Company Records• Whistle-blowers (disgruntled staff)• Leaks• Trade Unionists• Directors (History, Connections)

Using the Companies Registration Officewww.cro.ie

Free in some local libraries

This site is a useful one to keep an eye on to try and find stories

Also• Solocheck.ie

Investigating International Finance: Tax Havens

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I-RVVa6mKc

Investigating International Finance: Shadow Banking

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojaF40M-bH0

Where does Ireland fit in the Shadow Banking System?

Finance and Tax Havens: How do they do it?

• http://moneytrail.no/#

The IFSC•Shadow banking system•Light touch regulation•Tax write offs•Brass plate companies

A Typical IFSC Director• An IFSC company at random - Green Fields Capital Limited - and its

two directors - Alan Geraghty and Roger McGreal - sit on the boards of over 300 companies between them.

Roger McGreal is also a director of the Irish Bank Resolution Corporation.

• The sole director of Armoin Securities was Jennifer Coyne and Miss Coyne has 256 directorships to her name..

• The most that Miss Coyne could give in a year to each of the companies of which she's a director is eight hours. That's one day a year to each of the 256 companies, and even then she's working weekends. surely the obvious candidate for entrepreneur of the year?

On November 5, 2014, the Washington D.C. based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) releases LuxLeaks investigation. Eighty journalists from media organizations around the globe had been involved in collaboratively reviewing 28,000 pages of document.

All documents are available online in a searchable database categorized by industry and cooperation published by the ICIJ. The documents disclose tax rulings between Luxembourg and more than 340 companies worldwide aiming at reducing tax payments.

On 12 December 2014, the Luxembourg prosecutor's office announced that an investigating judge had charged someone with theft, disclosing of confidential information and trade secrets, money laundering and fraud, following the complaint filed by PwC in 2012 against a former employee.[

On 14 December 2014, Antoine Deltour - a 28-year-old Frenchman - identified himself and said that he acted from conviction, not for financial motivation. He stated that the files he copied were not protected, he did not hack any system. He said he had no contact with ICIJ which had disclosed the LuxLeaks documents and he did not attempt to hide what he was doing. He copied the files because he thought "this type of data could document the tax ruling practice, which was widely unknown, especially in terms of scale."

Lux Leaks• Lux Leaks• A six month investigation by the Irish Times as part of the

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists • multinational companies - including Irish companies like

Glanbia and Sisk – • using Luxembourg and Irish tax loopholes to save millions in

tax. • working with 80 journalists from 26 countries going through

more than 28,000 pages of documents. Read the results:• here:http://www.irishtimes.com/business/lux-leaks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekbBOi_tFcw

Offshore Leaks Data• http://www.icij.org/offshore/search-offshore-leaks-data

Searchable Lux Leaks site http://www.icij.org/project/luxembourg-leaks

Exercise• Go toLuxLeaks website and make an investigation plan from

this report on Skype

• http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1376408-lux-tax-ruling-approved-14-jun-2010.html

• What is interesting?• Who should you speak to?• What should you ask?

How the IT covered it• http://

www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/irish-skype-subsidiary-was-part-of-tax-deal-1.2031880

Reading for Next Week

TASC: Mapping the Golden Circle