There’s a new development in an insider breach that created shock waves internationally As I had noted back in 2014, a former PricewaterhouseCoopers employee charged with copying and leaking files to the media (the “Lux Leaks” case) had suggested that he wasn’t the only employee involved. Now Fraser Simpson reports that today,
two former PwC employees go on trial accused of leaking thousands of corporate documents that expose Luxembourg’s shadowy tax deals.
Antoine Deltour, a former auditor for the Big Four firm and ex-employee Raphael Halet are facing charges of theft, revealing business secrets, violation of professional secrets and money laundering.
Deltour is accused of passing on client information to French journalist Edouard Perrin, who first broke the story.
Halet is suspected of a separate leak to Deltour, while Perrin is facing accusations of being an accomplice.
Read more on Accountancy Age.
Although the measures PwC had advised its clients to take to avoid taxes were seemingly perfectly legal, “Lux Leaks” became a scandal as the public found out about how hundreds of big firms, including Pepsi and Ikea, were avoiding paying taxes. Indeed, it was probably the biggest tax leak case of its kind until the more recent PanamaLeak case. And like the Panama Leak, Lux Leaks was exposed by the Consortium for Investigative Journalism.