£100,000 PR campaign

Friday 27th June 2008, 3:00PM BST.

A £100,000 public relations campaign is being planned to ‘correct misconceptions’ about the Island’s finance industry.

The problem has arisen because Jersey is in the process of signing up to Tax Information Exchange Agreements with a number of other countries and has already done so with the United States and the Netherlands.

Jersey Finance says that some competitor jurisdictions, in particular Switzerland, have been using this to their competitive advantage to create negative publicity about the Island’s alleged lack of banking confidentiality.

Economic Development Minister Philip Ozouf said it had been generally accepted that the signing of the TIEAs had benefits, but at the same time there had been negative consequences.

‘We are facing particularly strong competition from Switzerland. But in fact we have excellent banking privacy in Jersey,’ he said.

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Richard Murphy

June 28, 2008 at 9:56 am

There’s a maxim amongst those who investigate corruption. It’s ‘follow the cash’.

Following the cash here shows what really matters to Jersey. Hiding crooks and tax evaders matters more than anything else.

I hope you tell this to the UK’s Treasury Select Committee when they meet. I somehow suspect that’s not the story you will relate.

That’s the hypocrisy at the core of Jersey’s financial services industry. But cash is king, and you have put yours where your heart is. I’ll be happy to tell the world that Jersey is open for money laundering, as usual.

Richard Murphy

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