EU-DIGEST

HSBC has joined an increasing list of large banks by announcing Friday it would not longer finance coal-fired plants, oil sands and arctic drilling

The move, announced by Europe’s largest bank at its annual meeting as part of its new energy policy, seeks to head off criticism from investors who want the institution’s actions to be aligned with the Paris

Agreement, a global pact to limit greenhouse gas emissions and curb rising temperatures.

Daniel Klier, HSBC’s sustainability boss, said the decision reflected the bank’s ambition to help its customers make the transition to a low-carbon economy.

Read more: HSBC pulls the plug on coal | MINING.com

 Whistleblower Herve Falciani, a former HSBC employee who exposed massive tax evasion via Swiss accounts, was Wednesday arrested in Spain but released again on Thursday. Falciani had fled to Spain to avoid jail in Switzerland. The arrest of the whistleblower comes at a sensitive time in Swiss-Spanish relations when Swiss courts are considering a Spanish extradition request for Catalan separatist Marta Rovira, who fled to Switzerland earlier this year.

Read more: HSBC whistleblower held in Swiss-Spanish extradition saga

Tory MPs have been vilified by Labour following allegations they blocked efforts by two separate parliamentary committees to question ex-HSBC chief Stephen Green over tax dodging allegations that have shattered public trust in the banking giant.

A bid tabled by Labour to call Green before Britain’s influential Public Accounts Committee has been rejected after the Conservative-dominated committee voted the proposal down.
 
The tax and spending watchdog consists of eight Conservative MPs, five Labour MPs and a single Liberal Democrat.

Green, who transitioned from HSBC chief to Tory peer and government minister in 2010, remains unchallenged by any government committee over the allegations that have engulfed the bank.

While he left his post as trade minister in 2013, he remains a peer in the House of Lords. He left HSBC with a lucrative pension of £19 million.

Labour MP Austin Mitchell had proposed that Green appear before the government tax and spending watchdog in early March. Mitchell said that it soon emerged Conservative members of the committee opposed his proposal. 

Read more: Tory MPs blasted for allowing ex-HSBC boss and trade minister to dodge scrutiny — RT UK

Hervé Falciani, who revealed how HSBC's Swiss banking arm helped wealthy customers avoid taxes and hide millions of dollars, is a man with an ambiguous and chequered personal story. 

Falciani sees himself as “part James Bond, evading dangerous, powerful opponents and working with government intelligence agents, and part disappointed idealist, shocked by the reality he encountered at the bank he once worked for”, according to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) which is coordinating the media exposé of HSBC Private Bank’s wrongdoings.

Read morePBusiness - Is HSBC whistleblower Falciani the French 'Snowden'? - France 24

The Swiss arm of British banking giant HSBC helped wealthy clients dodge taxes and hide millions of dollars from authorities, according to a report by a network of investigative journalists released Sunday based on a cache of leaked bank files.

The allegations prompted the bank to release a statement admitting it was “accountable for past compliance and control failures” at its Swiss subsidiary HSBC Private Bank.

The files, analysed by reporters in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) in collaboration with more than 140 journalists from 45 countries, showed that British banking giant HSBC provided accounts to international criminals, corrupt businessmen, politicians and celebrities.

"HSBC profited from doing business with arms dealers who channeled mortar bombs to child soldiers in Africa, bag men for Third World dictators, traffickers in blood diamonds and other international outlaws," ICIJ reported.

The leaked files were first obtained by French daily Le Monde, which then distributed them through the ICIJ to news outlets around the world, including The Guardian in the UK, Germany’s Süddeutsche Zeitung and 60 Minutes in the USA, who published their reports simultaneously on Sunday.

The Guardian alleged in its report that the files showed HSBC’s Swiss bank routinely allowed clients to withdraw “bricks” of cash, often in foreign currencies which were of little use in Switzerland, marketed schemes which were likely to enable wealthy clients to avoid European taxes and colluded to conceal undeclared accounts from domestic tax authorities.

Read more: Business - HSBC ‘helped clients dodge millions in tax’ - France 24

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