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Africa/Global: Paradise Papers, Plus
AfricaFocus Bulletin
December 11, 2017 (171211)
(Reposted from sources cited below)
Editor's Note
The Paradise Papers investigation, based on a leak of 6.8 million documents from the
offshore law firm Appleby, is the largest of recent revelations of the hidden world
of financial manipulation used by both multinational corporations and rich (high net
worth) individuals from around the world. Like the Panama Papers investigation that
won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize, it is based both on "big data" analysis and on
collaborative investigative reporting by teams of hundreds of journalists. But it is
based on the records of only one offshore law firm, albeit one of the most prominent.
Despite the size of the leak, it still reveals only the tip of the iceberg.
Such massive data leaks, plus dozens of other more focused investigations, show that
the system of hidden wealth is not at all an aberration but rather an essential
feature of today's globalized capitalism. In the United States as well as in South
Africa, to take only two of the most prominent examples, untangling such financial
webs is central to the future of national leaders and the shape of the political
system. And its ramifications are evident in the real estate markets of cities such
as London, New York, Miami, and Cape Town.
In addition to a few key background links just below, this AfricaFocus Bulletin
contains excerpts and links to two key Africa stories from the Paradise Papers, one
highlighting links of the multinational Glencore with the Democratic Republic of
Congo, via Bermuda and Israel, and the other highlighting links of Mauritius,
Switzerland, and management of Angola's sovereign wealth fund. It also includes
excerpts and links to two additional South African documents, one highlighting the
case of the Lonmin mining company which made use of the Appleby Bermuda location, and
the other an open letter from the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference,
posing questions to multinational mining companies in South Africa that make use of
multiple overseas tax havens.
On December 5, the European Union released its new "blacklist" of 17 countries
regarded as non-compliant on tax issues (tax havens). As noted by the Tax Justice
Network (TJN, http://tinyurl.com/ya35rwk6), the list notably fails to include
notorious tax havens such as EU members Luxembourg, Ireland, and the Netherlands, or any
of the British Crown Dependencies or Overseas Territories, such as Jersey and
Bermuda. Nor does it include the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, or
Singapore, all of which feature among the top 15 on TJN's Financial Secrecy Index (
http://www.financialsecrecyindex.com/).
The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists website at
http://www.icij.org, provides searchable access to a database as well as a wide range
of articles based on the Paradise Papers investigation and earlier similar leaks such
as the Panama Papers and Swiss Leaks.
For previous AfricaFocus Bulletins on tax evasion and illicit financial flows, visit
http://www.africafocus.org/intro-iff.php
On the distribution of world wealth, see the just-released World Wealth Report by
Credit Suisse (http://tinyurl.com/y99owkw9) "While the bottom half of adults
collectively own less than 1% of total wealth, the richest decile (top 10% of adults)
owns 88% of global assets, and the top percentile alone accounts for half of total
household wealth."
For an update on how the Republican tax bill further encourages offshore tax havens,
see "Senate Votes to Increase Tax Avoidance, Offshore U.S. Jobs," a December 2 press
release by the FACT Coalition, at http://tinyurl.com/y7tdz7p4
++++++++++++++++++++++end editor's note+++++++++++++++++
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The inside story of Glencore's hidden dealings in DRC
Ben Doherty, Petra Blum and Oliver Zihlmann
The Guardian, Nov. 5, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/y97ev4gm
Also see for more on Glencore and DRC, "Room Of Secrets Reveals Glencore’s Mysteries"
at http://tinyurl.com/y89x5u5e abd "The Heart of Africa" at
http://tinyurl.com/yagvw8jj
A secretive multinational company worth billions, whose founder turned fugitive was
pardoned by a president.
An Israeli diamond tycoon, rumoured to be the inspiration for a Hollywood
blockbuster.
And a struggling African nation, blessed and burdened by natural resources, riven by
war and corruption.
Behind the black letters of the Paradise Papers lies a world of extraordinary colour.
Obtained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, and shared with the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, the Guardian and more than 90
media partners across the globe, the Paradise Papers [from the files of offshore
legal firm Appleby] reveal the reality of the arcane
world of offshore tax havens and global finance.
The Jersey offices of Appleby. Jersey is a British Crown
Dependency located in the English Channel.
And they raise serious questions about the conduct of the commodities multinational
Glencore and the Israeli mining billionaire Dan Gertler in Africa.
They show that in 2009, Glencore, the world's biggest mining company, gave a secret
$45m loan to Gertler's company after it enlisted him to secure a controversial mining
agreement in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Over hundreds of pages, the papers expose in forensic detail how Gertler, whose
previous diamond monopoly in DRC was described by the UN as a "disaster" for the
country, held Glencore's imprimatur as key negotiator with Congolese authorities.
...
In Kinshasa, Gertler first met the president's son Joseph and then the president. A
friendship had begun and, according to a 2001 UN investigation, a deal was struck:
$20m in cash from Gertler that Kabila would use to buy weapons and fund his war
against rebels to consolidate his grip on power.
In exchange, Gertler's company IDI was granted a monopoly on the DRC diamond trade,
worth hundreds of millions a year. The deal was a "nightmare" for the country, the UN
report found.
Gertler's lawyers said he denied all allegations in the UN report and was not given
an opportunity to comment before publication. The UN has not cited him "in any
negative context" since 2001, his lawyers said.
The diamond deal would be the first of many. In the nearly two decades since, Gertler
has become an unofficial gatekeeper in dozens of mining deals across DRC – a country
the size of western Europe with a surfeit of natural resources.
But those valuable resources have not uplifted the country from poverty. Instead,
they have brought war and exploitation. DRC remains one of the least developed
nations. Devastated by long-running conflict and famines, it remains a place of
chronic communal and state violence, where infants die at almost the world's worst
rates and nearly half of all children are stunted by chronic malnutrition.
According to the 2013 estimate of the Africa Progress Panel, headed by the former UN
secretary general Kofi Annan, the unique ability of companies linked to Gertler to
win cut-price mining licences and agreements in DRC cost the country more than
$1.3bn, almost twice the nation's combined health and education budgets, in one
three-year period alone. Gertler's lawyers said his companies "categorically refute"
the allegations in the 2013 report, which they were not given an opportunity to
respond to.
...
The Glencore room
The Paradise Papers are an insight into the inner machinations of Appleby, one of the
"magic circle" of leading offshore investment firms.
Glencore is one of Appleby's most important clients. So central, in fact, has the
company been that at one time, on the second floor of Appleby's Bermuda headquarters,
was the Glencore room.
Across the hall from the women's bathroom, it was nondescript and rarely used.
Glencore executives never visited. It contained no more than a filing cabinet,
computer, telephone, fax machine and chequebook.
But the room gave Glencore a "robust footprint", in the words of one Appleby MD, in
the zero-tax island of Bermuda: a helpful asset in the event of any taxation
investigation.
The files that are likely to have once lived in that room, and the contents of which
were known only to a handful of people, are now globally exposed by the Paradise
Papers.
Full article at http://tinyurl.com/y97ev4gm
[Glencore operates world-wide. Another new ICIJ report focuses on a Glencore project
in Burkina Faso. See http://tinyurl.com/yb858uqf]
Paradise Papers – It’s not just tax evasion, it’s wage evasion by the wealthy and
powerful
Brian Ashley and Dick Forslund
Daily Maverick, 14 Dec, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/y6vqybcg
...
The Alternative Information and Development Centre’s (AIDC’s) 2015 research on Lonmin
exposed the centrality of wage evasion as the principle motivation behind the illicit
siphoning of hundreds of millions of rand out of South Africa to a Bermudan company
called Western Metal Sales. We also exposed Appleby as Lonmin’s preferred enabler.
A summary of the Lonmin case is now necessary to enable readers to better appreciate
the wage dimension in the use of tax and secrecy havens.
AIDC’s report, “The Bermuda Connection”, started as a research project for the
Marikana Commission. The commission’s authority provided access to the financial
statements of Lonmin’s subsidiaries in South Africa. These statements are lodged in
the archives of the Commercial and Intellectual Property Commission.
In August 2014, we reported to the Marikana Commission that the annual reports of
Lonmin’s main subsidiary in South Africa, Western Platinum, revealed transfers of
about R250-million a year in “sales commissions” to Bermuda, which continued until
2012. This occurred despite nobody sitting on the paradise island selling anything.
Alone, this off-shore payment would have allowed for a R3,500 a month wage increase
for 4,000 rock drill operators who started to strike in August 2012.
According to the annual reports lodged at the Commercial and Intellectual Property
Commission – duly audited by KPMG – the transfers did not stop in 2008, as Lonmin
stated in a 23 September 2014 media release. The research also revealed that it was
off-shore specialist law firm Appleby Services which facilitated Lonmin’s “Bermuda
Connection”. According to the Bermudian Companies’ Registry, the address of Lonmin’s
letterbox company ever since 2003 has been 22 Victoria Street, Hamilton, Bermuda,
which also is the address of Appleby Services.
...
But what is it really that Appleby is helping transnational companies to “avoid” when
their staff manage bank accounts and letterboxes? The media and many commendable
campaigns continue to focus on “tax avoidance”. They are ignoring that the central
purpose of these schemes is to avoid all obligations or stakeholder claims that would
make inroads into profits, not least wages.
Measured in rand or dollars, the biggest effect of “tax avoidance and tax evasion” on
the social and political situation in South Africa is not losses of tax incomes. For
example, using a rough calculation for simplicity, with a corporate tax rate of 28%,
for every R100-million taken illicitly out of the country, the tax authority loses
R28-million while the remainder, R72-million, is lost for wages and investments. The
illicit outflows to tax havens are instrumental in keeping the low wage regime in
place.
The second biggest effect is on the minority shareholders who hold shares in the
subsidiaries which are getting their funds depleted by fake invoicing from Dubai,
Mauritius, Malta, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Netherlands, Cayman Islands, etc.
This can be BEE capitalists or workers’ pension trusts, but they get screwed well
before the SA Revenue Services.
Thus, SARS is not the first in the queue of losers. If the illicit flows were to be
curbed or blocked, the government would only take its smaller percentage share in tax
after other stakeholders had taken what is due to them. It would take its share only
as number four in the queue, if we speak of mining communities, because without
cross-border profit shifting, the subsidiaries of transnational mining companies
could not plead poverty when reneging from the social labour plans and land
rehabilitation obligations. Or even as number five, because in many cases (and we are
working on such cases) shareholders in the listed mother company are also being
screwed: The transfers offshore are secret to them. In the consolidated annual
reports, these transfers are booked as paid to external service providers. Bank
accounts managed by firms such as Appleby Services are then only accessed by a group
of insiders, the real rulers of the world.
Full article at http://tinyurl.com/y6vqybcg Additional background on Lonmin and the
Marikana massacre at http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/mar1506b.php
Tax Haven Mauritius’ Rise Comes At The Rest Of Africa’s Expense
Will Fitzgibbon
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Nov. 7, 2017
http://tinyurl.com/ydzegc4q
[For another investigation featuring Mauritius and the case of the mobile phone
company MTN, see "Tax Tricks, Mobile Phones, and Beer" at
http://www.africafocus.org/docs15/td1510.php]
Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais was trying to invest offshore but was having a hard time
finding a place to put his money.
The 50-year-old Swiss-Angolan financier turned to Appleby, an elite law firm with
offices in tax havens around the globe.
First, Bastos tried Appleby’s office on the island of Jersey, a popular offshore
financial center in the English Channel. But Appleby employees there balked at his
2011 request to set up a shell company without being told why it was needed or what
assets it would hold. One thing that concerned Appleby’s Jersey lawyers was the
possibility that the shell company would own a shipping port in corruption-prone
Angola.
Next Bastos, an amateur tennis player who runs an asset-management firm, Quantum
Global Group, tried Appleby’s office on the Isle of Man, in the Irish Sea. Appleby’s
management there decided that Appleby would require a seat on the offshore company’s
board of directors to exercise some supervision over what they described as his highrisk
business. The arrangement did not go ahead.
Finally, in 2013, after Angola’s sovereign wealth fund entrusted Bastos with $5
billion, he turned to another Appleby outpost: Mauritius, an island nation in the
Indian Ocean, 1,200 miles off the east coast of southern Africa.
“We are pleased to be able to act on your behalf,” Appleby’s top lawyer in Mauritius,
Malcolm Moller, wrote to Bastos’ Quantum Global in October 2013.
A window onto a tax haven
The warm email welcome for Bastos’ business is one of more than half a million secret
records from Appleby’s Mauritius office that were obtained by the German newspaper
Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative
Journalists and 94 media partners around the world. The Paradise Papers come from the
offshore law firm Appleby and corporate services provider Estera, two businesses that
operated together under the Appleby name until Estera became independent in 2016.
The emails, bank account applications, PowerPoint presentations on tax avoidance, and
other confidential documents open a window into the operations of Appleby’s 40-plusemployee
operation in Mauritius; By extension, they illuminate the surprising
importance of Mauritius, an island nation with a multiethnic population of 1.3
million, as a hub in the secretive offshore financial network that enables
legitimate, humdrum business to thrive but also helps wealthy people and profitable
businesses shield their assets and profits from taxation.
Using an array of complex schemes and companies that are little more than addresses
on a piece of paper, this global system has helped corporations shift $100 billion to
$300 billion a year in tax revenue away from developing countries, according to the
International Monetary Fund.
...
For full article, visit http://tinyurl.com/ydzegc4q
Open Letter to Multinational Mining Companies in South Africa urging greater
transparency in their use of tax havens
Justice and Peace Commission, Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference
http://www.sacbcjusticeandpeace.org
29th November 2017.
[full text of letter available at http://curtisresearch.org/publications/ or
http://tinyurl.com/ya9kob5o]
Attention: Anglo American and Kumba Iron Ore, Anglogold Ashanti, ASA Resource Group
PLC, Bushveld Minerals, Central Rand Gold Limited, DiamondCorp PLC, Eastern Platinum
Ltd, Exxaro Resources, Galileo Resources, Gold Fields Limited, Harmony Gold, Impala
Platinum, Jubilee Platinum, LonMin PLC, Petra Diamonds, Resource Generation Ltd,
Sibanye Stillwater, Sylvania Platinum Ltd, Tower Resources PLC, Xtract Resources
Introduction
Tax avoidance and tax havens present major problems to governments seeking to
maximise the resources available for public spending. Globally, tax avoidance by
multinational companies amounts to hundreds of billions of dollars; one recent
estimate is $500 billion. In addition, vast amounts of wealth are held in tax havens:
Research for the Tax Justice Network estimates that the figure may be a staggering
$24-36 trillion. Another estimate, using a different methodology, estimated the
figure to be 8 per cent of global wealth, or $7.6 trillion. Gabriel Zucman, an
academic at the London School of Economics in the UK, estimated in 2014 that rich
Africans were holding a massive $500 billion offshore (i.e, in tax havens) -
amounting to 30% of all Africa's financial wealth. The fact that this wealth is
untaxed means that African elites have stolen around $15 billion from their own
countries, according to Zucman's conservative estimate.
A tax haven (also known as a tax shelter or secrecy jurisdiction) provides facilities
that enable people or entities escape and frequently undermine the laws, rules and
regulations of other jurisdictions elsewhere,often using secrecy as a prime tool.
They are countries or jurisdictions offering certain tax benefits such as lower tax
rates, credit mechanisms or deductions resulting in limited or no tax being levied on
certain profits. Different jurisdictions make different offshore offerings. The
British Virgin Islands, for example, specialises in incorporating offshore companies.
Switzerland and Luxembourg offer secret banking, corporate tax avoidance and a wide
range of other offshore services. The Tax Justice Network's Financial Secrecy Index
ranks the most serious country cases, with the UK, Cayman Islands, Jersey,
Switzerland, British Virgin Islands, United States, Hong Kong, Luxembourg and
Switzerland among the worst. Mauritius is another low-tax, secrecy jurisdiction often
favoured by companies operating in Africa. Bermuda is another.
A controversial issue is whether tax havens should be allowed at all. International
negotiations among governments have been unable to agree a comprehensive list of
'blacklisted' countries. Currently, tax havens can be used legally in tax planning
where profits are properly attributable to the tax haven and where the company has a
sufficient presence there. Deloitte, the tax advisory firm that is part of the
offshore industry, notes that companies seeking to operate within a tax haven should,
in essence, be managed and controlled from that jurisdiction and have sufficient
operations that can justify their tax residency.
The presence of tax havens in corporate structures does not mean that companies are
engaged in tax avoidance, and this letter makes no allegations concerning this for
the companies listed below. However, the risk that some companies may engage in tax
avoidance is heightened by their use of tax havens and the inability of outsiders to
scrutinise adequately their tax affairs. Some individuals and companies use tax
havens illegally purely to evade tax: this usually involves creating shell companies
or 'letterbox' companies with no economic activity in order to hide profits and
benefit from lower tax rates than in their true home jurisdictions.
Questions to companies
We have undertaken research into the financial accounts of mining companies operating
in South Africa, using the companies' published financial accounts and other
information publicly available on the internet, especially the company database,
Orbis. The research entailed analysis of the key financial information of the largest
mining companies by market capitalisation operating in South Africa. The list below
highlights that the use of tax havens is common among mining companies: 21 of the
largest companies are using tax havens.
The questions we highlight below [included in full text letter for each company] are
not accusing companies of anything. We believe it is important for companies to
provide an explanation for why they use tax havens and the roles of these subsidiary
companies.
Anglo American : Anglo American lists a very large number of subsidiaries and
associate companies in tax havens: Bermuda (two companies), British Virgin Islands
(8), Cayman Islands (1), Isle of Man (2), Luxembourg (10), Mauritius (5), and the
Netherlands (17).
- Why does the company have so many subsidiaries based in tax havens?
- What purpose do these companies serve?
- How many employees does each subsidiary employ in the country where it is
incorporated?
- What tax advantages does the company receive by having subsidiaries in these tax
havens?
- How is the use of tax havens consistent with the company's corporate social
responsibility policies?
- Is the company willing to report its key financial figures on a country-by-country
basis in all countries where it operates, including its subsidiary companies and/or
holding companies in tax havens? If not, why?
[Note: similar questions for each company are in the full text of the letter]
Anglogold Ashanti: The company has a subsidiary, AngloGold Ashanti PLC, which is
incorporated in the Isle of Man and a joint venture, Kibali (Jersey) ltd, which is
incorporated in Jersey.
ASA Resource Group PLC: ASA resources has seven subsidiaries in the British Virgin
Islands, five in Mauritius and one in the Cayman Islands.
Bushveld Minerals : Bushveld Minerals has seven subsidiaries in Mauritius, one in the
British Virgin Islands and three in Guernsey. These 11 subsidiaries in tax havens
account for more than half of the company's total number of subsidiaries (19).
Central Rand Gold Limited: Central Rand Gold's Annual report 2015 (the latest
available on its website)states that the company has subsidiaries in the Netherlands
Antilles (Central Rand Gold (Netherlands Antilles) BV) and in Guernsey (Central Rand
Gold Benefit Trust).
DiamondCorp PLC : DiamondCorp lists two of its six subsidiaries as incorporated in
the British Virgin Islands (DiamondCorp Holdings Ltd and Botswana DiamondCorp Ltd).
Eastern Platinum Ltd: Of Eastern Platinum's 12 subsidiaries, three are in the British
Virgin Islands and one is in Barbados.
Exxaro Resources : The company's 2016 Annual Financial Report states that it has
subsidiaries in Mauritius (Mayoko Investment Company but which was sold in 2016),
Bermuda (AKI Exploration (Bermuda) Proprietary Limited, also sold in 2016) and three
in the Netherlands (Exxaro Base Metals International BV, Exxaro International BV and
Exxaro Mineral Sands BV).
Galileo Resources : Galileo has one subsidiary in the British Virgin Islands
(Skiptons Global Investments Ltd).
Gold Fields Limited: Gold Fields Ltd has three subsidiaries in British Virgin Islands
and one each in Switzerland and the Netherlands. The financial statements of the
company's Gold Fields Netherlands Services B.V. The financial accounts indicate that
the Dutch company had only one employee but a significant role in Gold Fields'
structure. The company's 2016 annual report states: "Gold Fields does not
artificially shift profits to... [low-tax] locations."
Harmony Gold : Harmony Gold has a subsidiary in the Isle of Man (Harmony Gold Ltd).
Impala Platinum: Impala Platinum has one subsidiary in the Netherlands (Impala
Platinum BV), one in Guernsey (Zimplats Holdings Ltd) and a joint venture in
Mauritius (Mimosa).
Jubilee Platinum : Jubilee Platinum lists one subsidiary (Braemore Holdings
(Mauritius) Pty Ltd) in Mauritius.
Kumba Iron Ore : Kumba Iron Ore, part of Anglo American, has two subsidiaries in the
Netherlands and two in Luxembourg.
LonMin PLC : LonMin has three subsidiaries in the British Virgin Islands and one in
the Cayman Islands.
Petra Diamonds: Petra Diamonds is incorporated in Bermuda and has subsidiaries in the
British Virgin Islands (BVI), Bermuda, Jersey and the Netherlands.
Resource Generation Ltd: Of the company's eight subsidiaries, two are incorporated in
Mauritius.
Sibanye Stillwater : The company database Orbis lists 34 subsidiaries for Sibanye of
which two are in Bermuda. However, the company's 2016 Annual Financial Report 2016
does not mention any subsidiaries in Bermuda. It lists a company called Sibanye
Proprietary Platinum Ltd. It is not clear if this is the same company as listed
elsewhere on the Sibanye's website as Sibanye Platinum Bermuda Proprietary Limited;
this is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sibanye registered in Bermuda.
Sylvania Platinum Ltd: Sylvania is itself incorporated in Bermuda and has three
subsidiaries in Mauritius.
Tower Resources PLC : Tower Resources lists two subsidiaries in the Isle of Man and
one in the British Virgin Islands.
Xtract Resources PLC : Xtract Resources lists three subsidiaries in the Netherlands
and one in the British Virgin Islands.
We look forward to receiving your reply.
Yours sincerely,
Bishop Abel Gabuza. Email: smuyebe@sacbc.org.za
AfricaFocus Bulletin is an independent electronic publication providing reposted
commentary and analysis on African issues, with a particular focus on U.S. and
international policies. AfricaFocus Bulletin is edited by William Minter.
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