By John Donovan
The lead article in The Sunday Times Business section today (authored by Simon Duke and David Smith) says that Britain is at the forefront of a crackdown on corporate tax avoidance – a blitz on tax avoidance by multinationals.
The UK Treasury is planning a consultation on forcing multinationals like Royal Dutch Shell to declare how much tax they pay in every country in which they operate.
Extract
Country by Country reporting would introduce greater transparency into the complex structures used by big companies to minimise their tax liabilities…
By Ed Cropley
Shell, BP and Petrofac shares close down as Opec decides not to cut oil production. Stocks of major oil producers were in the firing line as their profits are hugely dependent on the price of oil they extract. Royal Dutch Shell, for example, fell 4.3 percent while Total SA dropped 4.1 percent.
The significance of the Newsweek article is therefore threefold: firstly Shell appears to have misled the court in the Hague which from a reputational perspective is extremely damaging (hence the headline of the article), secondly the case will now return to court for a retrial, and thirdly the lawyers and witnesses in the original case may be subject to legal action by the Dutch authorities.
