Luxembourg Leaks

Luxembourg Leaks (sometimes shortened to Lux Leaks or LuxLeaks) is the name of a financial scandal revealed in November 2014 by a journalistic investigation conducted by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. It is based on confidential information about Luxembourg’s tax rulings set up by PricewaterhouseCoopers from 2002 to 2010 to the benefits of its clients. This investigation resulted in making available to the public tax rulings for over three hundred multinational companies based in Luxembourg.

The LuxLeaks' disclosures attracted international attention and comment about tax avoidance schemes in Luxembourg and elsewhere. This scandal contributed to the implementation of measures aiming at reducing tax dumping and regulating tax avoidance schemes beneficial to multinational companies.

The judicial aspects of this case concern the persons charged by Luxembourg justice for participating in the revelations.

On November 5, 2014, the Washington D.C. based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) releases LuxLeaks investigation. Eighty journalists from media organizations around the globe had been involved in collaboratively reviewing 28,000 pages of documents. All documents are available online in a searchable database categorized by industry and corporation published by the ICIJ and by other websites. The documents disclose tax rulings between Luxembourg and more than 340 companies worldwide aiming at reducing their tax payments. The Luxembourg Leaks provide insight into 548 tax rulings, dating from 2002 to 2010.

On December 9, 2014, ICIJ reveals new names of about 30 large companies benefiting from tax rulings and tax avoidance schemes in Luxembourg. This second wave is labeled “LuxLeaks 2” in complement to the first revelation wave in November labeled “LuxLeaks 1”.

The LuxLeaks revelations have had a worldwide impact, as ICIJ partnered its investigations with many media around the world: CNBC (USA), CBC (Canada), The Irish Times (Ireland), Le Monde (France), Tagesanzeiger (Switzerland), Süddeutsche Zeitung (Germany), Asahi Shimbun (Japan) and many others.

After publishing LuxLeaks investigation, ICIJ was awarded one of the United States’ top journalism awards, the George Polk Awards in the Business Reporting category (ICIJ is jointly awarded for 2 other investigations) in February 2015. ICIJ was also awarded ‘Investigation of the Year’ for the Luxleaks and SwissLeaks investigations at the Data Journalism Awards in June 2015.

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