Activities of European banks in tax havens

5.4.2016

Question for written answer P-002708-16
to the Commission
Rule 130
Pirkko Ruohonen-Lerner (ECR)

According to documents leaked from the law firm of Mossack Fonseca, the banking concern Nordea has been actively working in tax havens. From 2004 to 2014 the bank’s Luxembourg branch founded some 400 tax haven companies for its clients in Panama and the British Virgin Islands.

According to press reports, the directors of the tax haven companies founded by Nordea were sock puppets, and the real owners remained out of the public registers.

These revelations come as no surprise.

Last year Nordea received a warning from the Swedish authorities and a EUR 5.4 million fine for an offence against money-laundering regulations. At the time the authorities suspected that the bank had serious shortcomings in the area of money laundering prevention. In 2013 too, Nordea was fined for a similar type of offence.

There is cause to think that Nordea is not the only bank which aids tax avoidance in its own area of activity and thus distorts competition between undertakings.

By what means does the Commission intend to intervene in the activities of banks that promote tax avoidance?