The leading French luxury goods company Kering, owned by the ultra wealthy Pinault family, saved 39 million euros in tax by paying the former boss of its subsidiary Gucci via a company in Panama, according to documents obtained by Mediapart and shared with the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC). The French company also lied about its tax avoidance schemes to two separate investigations carried out by the French Senate. Yann Philippin investigates.
President Emmanuel Macron's recent reference to the “shedloads of dosh” that the state pays out in benefits has sparked a lot of discussion about money in France. The controversial phrase was followed by revelations about a huge payout awarded to the outgoing chief executive of a major French company, a controversy over the cost of presidential crockery and a mini-row over footballers' pay. But as Hubert Huertas explains, how people in France react to discussions about money depends on where that money comes from - and who is receiving it.
Luis Moreno Ocampo managed companies based in some of the most notorious tax havens in the world while serving as chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, documents obtained by Mediapart and analysed by the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) reveal. When challenged about his offshore financial activities the former star prosecutor said that his salary at the ICC “was not enough”. Mediapart's head of investigations Fabrice Arfi and Sven Becker of German publication Der Spiegel report.
Documents obtained from the whistle-blowing platform Football Leaks and analysed by Mediapart and its partners in the journalistic collective European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), provide an astonishing insight into events surrounding the transfer of French midfielder Geoffrey Kondogbia from Sevilla to Monaco in 2013. The sometimes sordid saga surrounding Kondogbia’s transfer, in which the player had no part, involved secret commission payments and a plan to hold a sex party in Miami for the president of Real Madrid – who strenuously denies ever taking part in the event. Yann Philippin, Michaël Hajdenberg and Michel Henry report.
Paul Pogba, the world’s most expensive football player, has provided rich pickings in commissions for his agents. Beyond the lucrative returns on his transfer fees, the 23-year-old French midfielder’s image rights represent a major source of revenue both for the player and his intermediaries. In the space of two years, and amid a bitter dispute between two of his agents, Pogba’s image rights have been managed by a company in Luxembourg, subsequently by another in Ireland, and are now held by a shell company in the Channel Island tax haven of Jersey, according to documents obtained by the journalistic collective European Investigative Collaborations, of which Mediapart is a founding member. Yann Philippin, Michaël Hajdenberg and Michel Henry report.
The football manager dubbed the “Special One” who is currently in charge of Manchester United hid 12 million euros in Switzerland via an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands that he controlled through a New Zealand trust. Documents from Football Leaks show that José Mourinho hid some information from the tax authorities. As Michael Hajdenberg, Michel Henry and Yann Philippin report, this could lead to potential criminal proceedings against the manager if the tax authorities decide to reopen their files. Mourinho and his advisors strongly deny any wrongdoing.
Beginning in 2008, Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo channelled just under 150 million euros earned from commercial deals into the Caribbean tax haven of the British Virgin Islands and in Switzerland, according to documents from the whistle-blowing platform Football Leaks and revealed by Mediapart and its media partners in the European Investigative Collaborations consortium. After first avoiding the scrutiny of the Spanish tax authorities, the Real Madrid player wound down the offshore company involved in the scheme, escaping a potential tax payment of 31 million euros. Michael Hajdenberg, Michel Henry and Yann Philippin report.
French economist Gabriel Zucman is carving a reputation as one of the leading specialists on the growing business of organized tax evasion and the cost of tax havens to the public purse. Zucman, an assistant professor with the London School of Economics and a visiting scholar with the University of California, Berkeley, has just completed his latest study of this gigantic worldwide fraud, published in France under the title ‘La Richesse cachée des nations - Enquête sur les paradis fiscaux’ (The hidden wealth of nations -an investigation into tax havens). In this interview with Dan Israel, he presents his calculations of the staggering amounts of assets secretly stashed in tax havens across the globe, and offers his own proposals for tackling the problem.
ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel producer whose chairman and CEO is London-based Indian tycoon Lakshmi Mittal (pictured), pays hardly any taxes in Europe. Making the most of the tax-break competition between European Union countries, the group juggles transfer pricing and optimal fiscal gains for its financial flow. But behind what may appear to be a common sense business approach that makes the most of what’s on offer lies a secretive organisation that prevents any proper scrutiny of the real economic performance of ArcelorMittal’s plants or subsidiary companies. In this first of a two-part investigation, Martine Orange traces the steel giant's history and lifts the veil on its hidden practices.
