Barclays gags Guardian over tax

[muriel_volestrangler]

Barclays Bank obtained a court order early today banning the Guardian from publishing documents which showed how the bank set up companies to avoid hundreds of millions of pounds in tax.

The gagging order was granted by Mr Justice Ouseley after Barclays complained about seven documents on the Guardian's website which had been leaked to the Liberal Democrats' deputy leader, Vince Cable.

The internal Barclays memos – leaked by a Barclays whistleblower – showed executives from SCM, Barclays's structured capital markets division, seeking approval for a 2007 plan to sink more than $16bn (£11.4bn) into US loans.

Tax benefits were to be generated by an elaborate circuit of Cayman islands companies, US partnerships and Luxembourg subsidiaries.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/17/barclays-guardian-injunction-tax

[ikri]

1. Documents are definately not available on wikileaks

There's really no point in typing http://wikileaks.org into your browser & you probably shouldn't click on the link that's not there and not at all labelled The Guardian: Censored Barclays tax avoidance leaked memos, 16 Mar 2009

No point at all.

[Nihil]

4. Thanks for that!

Hmmm ... wonder if the Guardian are allowed to point out that the
wikileaks site is a useful source of information for things that
have been blocked by rich/powerful/crooked/cowardly organisations ...?
:think:

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. It seems not, until an obliging parliamentarian uses their privilege; and then The Guardian

can report it:

Liberal Democrat spokesman Lord Oakeshott used parliamentary privilege today to blow a hole in a gag order obtained by Barclays Bank over its tax avoidance scheme.

The documents detailing the schemes, previously leaked to the Lib-Dems, were now available on Wikileaks.org and other websites, he told a Lords debate on tax avoidance.

Barclays had previously obtained a high court injunction banning the Guardian and other papers from disclosing that the documents were publicly available on Wikileaks.org. The gag order, provided by Mr Justice Blake, also forced the Guardian to remove copies of the documents from the paper's own website.

Oakeshott said he believed it was his duty "to tell parliament about Barclays' tax avoidance machine with its aggressive exploitation of tax havens, and to tell the public where they can get chapter and verse, and judge for themselves." He added: "It's a sad day for democracy if a judge sitting in secret can stifle this essential public debate."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/26/barclays-tax-avoidance-gag-order

And then:

Two out of three US banks have terminated their involvement in a wide-ranging tax-avoidance scheme operated by Barclays.

The banks had taken loans from Barclays amounting to $11bn (£7.6bn), which they were due to hold for another year. But sources at Bank of America and BB&T confirmed yesterday that transactions under Project Knight have been terminated prematurely and the loans repaid.

A third bank, Wachovia, refused to comment on the status of a $6bn loan it also took from Barclays under Project Knight.

The unwinding of the scheme is liable to hit Barclays' profits, as the three-year project was designed to generate tax reliefs of about £100m next year.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/27/barclays-tax-avoidance-partnerships

What makes this climbdown more satisfying was that I was having an argument with a friend over last weekend about assigning blame for the recession. He said bankers were just doing what they were legally allowed, and we shouldn't expect more than that from them; I was arguing that the ought to try to keep their banks going concerns, and have some civic responsibility too. He countered with "well, they pay their taxes, so leave them alone", and I mentioned the gag. It now seems clear they'll do anything legal to get out of paying their taxes too.

[dipsydoodle]

6. No point whatsoever

:rofl:

If you just google project knight barclays you get this anyway : http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/27/barclays-tax-avoidance-partnerships

[B Whale]

2. Scandalous. On what basis did the judge do that? Is this

not what investigative journalism does.?

What law were they breaking. Do you know?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. I'd like answers to your questions too n/t