{"id":40234,"date":"2018-01-11T11:34:43","date_gmt":"2018-01-11T11:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=40234"},"modified":"2018-01-11T11:34:43","modified_gmt":"2018-01-11T11:34:43","slug":"great-news-from-luxembourg-the-luxleaks-whistleblower-has-been-cleared","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2018\/01\/11\/great-news-from-luxembourg-the-luxleaks-whistleblower-has-been-cleared\/","title":{"rendered":"Great news from Luxembourg &#8211; the LuxLeaks whistleblower has been cleared"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Phys.org <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2018-01-luxleaks-whistleblower-conviction-overturned.html#jCp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has reported this morning<\/a> that:<\/p>\n<div class=\"first-block\">\n<blockquote><p>A Luxembourg court on Thursday overturned\u2013on human rights grounds\u2013the verdict against a \"LuxLeaks\" whistleblower who was convicted of leaking thousands of documents that revealed tax breaks for multinational firms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p>Luxembourg's highest\u00a0<a class=\"textTag\" href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/court\/\" rel=\"tag\">court<\/a>\u00a0rejected the conviction against former PricewaterhouseCoopers employee Antoine Deltour, who in March had received a reduced six-month suspended jail sentence with a 1,500-euro fine.<\/p>\n<p>The LuxLeaks scandal erupted in 2014 and sparked a major global push against generous deals handed to multinationals, which grew even stronger with new revelations such as the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers Leaks.<\/p>\n<p>\"Today is a victory,\" Deltour said as he left the courtroom.<\/p>\n<p>The court \"has clearly indicated towards a favourable outcome here in Luxembourg,\" he added.<\/p>\n<p>The sentence against Deltour's colleague Raphael Halet, who received a 1,000-euro fine after an appeal, was however upheld as the court said that he did not fit the whistleblower definition.<\/p>\n<p>The blockbuster leak revealed the huge\u00a0<a class=\"textTag\" href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/tax+breaks\/\" rel=\"tag\">tax breaks<\/a>\u00a0that tiny EU nation Luxembourg offered international firms including Apple, IKEA and Pepsi, at a time when Jean-Claude Juncker, now head of the European Commission, was prime minister.<\/p>\n<p>The tiny EU country's highest appeal court said Deltour was wrongly accused as he should have been fully recognised as a whistleblower as defined by the European Court of Human Rights.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I am absolutely delighted.<\/p>\n<p>Justice has been done.<\/p>\n<p>Whistleblowing tax abuse is in the public interest. Long may it remain so.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Phys.org has reported this morning that: A Luxembourg court on Thursday overturned\u2013on human rights grounds\u2013the verdict against a &#8220;LuxLeaks&#8221; whistleblower who was convicted of leaking<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2018\/01\/11\/great-news-from-luxembourg-the-luxleaks-whistleblower-has-been-cleared\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67,26,16,103,8,10,32,97],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-accountancy","category-accounting","category-ethics","category-luxembourg","category-pwc","category-tax-avoidance","category-tax-havens","category-tax-justice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}