Panama Papers: Credit Agricole reply after his challenge – Challenges.fr

The bank Crédit Agricole, questioned Wednesday, May 11 by the daily Le Monde in Panama Papers case, said he stopped permanently mounting any offshore companies since 2015, in a statement sent to AFP. “Private banking Credit Agricole does not create or administered called offshore structures for its clients. This activity has been phased out and ceased definitively in 2015,” said the bank in this release.

Credit Agricole “reaffirms has terminated these activities in any form whatsoever, including through external providers,” it is stressed. The bank says otherwise not be present in Panama, or “in any tax haven”. It also claims to have “engaged withdrawal of non-cooperative jurisdictions from 2010″.

According to the newspaper Le Monde , the Crédit Agricole Group have given to the Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca nearly 1,130 offshore companies from the 1990s on behalf of its customers, via its subsidiaries. More than a month after first revelations involving particularly Societe Generale, the daily peak this time Crédit Agricole Suisse as well as Monaco and Luxembourg subsidiaries of the green bank.

According to the daily, these institutions would have helped their clients to escape the European tax authorities through the use of offshore structures in order among others to hide their identity when transferring shares of their companies.

BNP Paribas also pinned

BNP Paribas, the first French bank, is also pinned by Le Monde for his side managed 468 offshore structures with Mossack Fonseca from the 1980 half a dozen of these companies were still active end 2015, ahead of the newspaper. Solicited by AFP, BNP Paribas was not available to react immediately.

These new elements revealed by Le Monde are likely to interest the national financial parquet (PNF), which opened a preliminary investigation for “laundering tax evasion aggravated” April 4 after the first daily revelations which concerned including Société Générale.

This survey is intended as a first step to use the data of the International Consortium of investigative journalists (ICIJ), before launching more targeted action against individuals or companies. Following the first revelations of the World , a search was held at Société Générale as part of the investigation by the PNF.

As for NGOs, the Oxfam denounced in a statement the involvement of French banks at the heart of the “scandal of Panama Papers” which is “proof that banks are central, if not the motor, planetary escape system tax “.

(with AFP)