The FT has noted this morning that:
Moldova's government collapsed on Thursday as the fallout from a $1bn theft from the country's banks dragged Europe's poorest nation deeper into political crisis.
The country's lawmakers strongly backed a no-confidence motion against the pro-EU government amid public outrage at its role in the missing $1bn, heralding weeks of political instability and weakening the country's EU integration efforts.
The vote came a fortnight after the arrest of the country's former prime minister, who was alleged to have been part of a fraud in which 13.5bn Moldovan lei, equivalent to almost one-fifth of the country's GDP, was stolen from three of the country's banks.
And how was that money stolen? In part as a consequence of using the anonymity provided by the UK's unaccountable system of corporate law and company registration. This is from the Tax Justice Network website, pointing out that part of this fraud was supposedly managed from s Scottish flat:
From the BBC:
“The UK is one of the easiest countries in the world to set up a company in, and some agents offer to do it in an hour, for as little as £25.”
In standard parlance, this makes the UK an ‘efficient' place to set up a company, reassuringly free of that pesky ‘red tape.' All good stuff.
But wait a moment. This quote comes from a story that also contains this:
“The loss of the money — equivalent to an eighth of Moldova's entire GDP — has thrown the country into economic and political chaos.”
And this money seems to have disappeared via this Scottish ex-council flat in our picture. More precisely, as the report notes:
“One of the companies registered at the address is Fortuna United LP, the UK partnership named in a leaked report by Moldova's central bank as the firm with the rights to the billion dollars which disappeared last year from three of the country's main banks.”
See the story for the full details — but to cut a long story short, a result of all this looks like this.
UK lax regulation is long overdue for reform, as I have often argued. When it is serious enough to help bring down governments something is very wrong. And it certainly shows that we operate structures as abusive and as unaccountable as those in any tax haven.
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Oh come on!…..The idea that if the UK company rules were a bit stricter this money would not have disappeared is rubbish!……..It just would have gone somewhere else!
This is like finding a story where an armed bank robber used a range rover so we must now punish Land Rover UK because obviously if there were no range rovers the robbery would never have happened!
Utterly pathetic attempt at linkage….
Oh come on – the LP is more used for abuse than anything else now
“It would have just gone somewhere else” seems to be the crux of the argument.
Which is an interesting line to take because it’s a line applicable not just to one specific single case or example, it’s a an argument which can, and often is, applied generally.
It’s the kind of argument you hear from, say,the arms dealer selling anti personnel mines or cluster bombs. If we did not do it someone else would, so therefore it’s perfectly reasonable and no problem whatsoever because all the civilians killed or maimed by them would have suffered the same fate anyway so why should we not make money rather than someone else?
Or, to take another common example, tax avoidance. Why bother to close the tax loopholes. The big corporations are going to do what they want anyway. Why bother?
It’s the Dickensian ‘be ‘umble’ and touch your forelock excuse. The die in a ditch to defend our betters right to shit on us defence.
I think we’ve all sussed out who it is being pathetic here.
Agreed
Oddly the people offering such arguments do not say it’s not worth targeting social security cheating because those caught will simply find another way to abuse next time