Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, April 15, 2013

Dutch Banking Giants Helped Clients Go Offshore

ING and ABN Amro set up dozens of companies in island tax havens.

The Dutch banks ING and ABN Amro registered dozens of companies for their clients in offshore refuges with lovely beaches and low tax rates such as the British Virgin Islands, the Cook Islands and the Malaysian island of Labuan, an investigation by Dutch newspaper Trouw and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found.

Trouw found the information in leaked documents and emails from two companies — Singapore-based Portcullis TrustNet and British Virgin Islands-based Commonwealth Trust Limited — that specialize in helping customers set up and manage companies in offshore centers known as havens for individuals who want to reduce their taxes.

ING and ABN Amro said they have never been party to tax evasion.

“The companies were set up for international clients and always in compliance with local and international laws,” ABN Amro said in a statement.

The companies set up by the two Dutch banks have names like Thriving Capital, Capital Plus Worldwide, Wise Bonus Group and Billion Giant Development. Records show that so-called ‘nominee’ companies helped obscure the identities of many of the people involved in the companies that ING and ABN set up through offshore services firms. These nominee companies act as stand-in directors or shareholders while the actual owners stay in the background.

The database lists ING-subsidiaries and ING-staff as nominee directors and nominee shareholders. Several companies that are registered through TrustNet  name ING (Jersey) Nominees Limited as shareholder and list ING employees as directors.

In one example, ING (Jersey) Secretaries Limited and ING (Jersey) Nominees Limited are listed as shareholders of a company called Ocean & Mountain Limited. There is no ING company document showing that Ocean & Mountain Limited was part of the bank.

ING said that because the bank divisions that managed such companies have since been sold, it was unable to explain the reason for the use of such structures.

Original Article
Source: icij.org
Author: Joop Bouma and Martijn Roessingh

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