Anti-Tax Haven Lobby Targets Jersey Firms

by Christine Herbert, Jersey Evening Post

19 October 2004

This story is reproduced by kind permission of the Jersey Evening Post at http://www.thisisjersey.com

Jersey-based offices of the major accountancy firms have been targeted in a new publication by an anti-tax haven lobby group.

The booklet entitled 'Race to the Bottom: The case of the accountancy firms', penned by two UK Members of Parliament and an academic, includes a chapter describing events which took place in 1995 and 1996, when Jersey approved its Limited Liability Partnerships law.

Austin Mitchell, MP for Great Grimsby, Jim Cousins, MP for Newcastle Central, and Prem Sikka, claim that accountancy firms Price Waterhouse and Ernst & Young effectively drafted the law themselves, 'hired' the States to get the law introduced so that they would be protected from lawsuits, and did the same in the UK.

At the time Mr Mitchell, a long-standing opponent of Jersey's financial services industry, tried to stop the law getting UK Privy Council approval, but was unsuccessful.

The booklet published by the Association for Accountancy and Business Affairs is peppered with references to Jersey politicians past and present - including Senators Pierre Horsfall and Reg Jeune, Deputies Stuart Syvret, Gary Mathews, and Dereck Carter, and the now Constable of St Helier, Simon Crowcroft - but contains little that hasn't been said before in a similar publication issued two years ago.

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