The 3 last april, 109 media around the world reveal the results of their investigation into the biggest data breach : les Panama Papers. The Panama Papers represent 2,6 TB of data - it's enormous ! —. When the daily Süddeutsche Zeitung receives all these files from an informant, he decides to ask for help from the international consortium of investigative journalists. This organization is responsible for connecting dozens of media to investigate and work together.
We take stock of the Panama Paper
Files revealed by the German daily show 214,488 offshore companies. An offshore company is a company domiciled in a foreign country where regulations and taxation are very advantageous such as Panama or Hong Kong : low tax rate, even zero, simple creation of the company and verification of the identity of the creators is quite flexible.
It should be understood that these offshore companies do not carry out real activities in these tax havens. For the vast majority, it’s just a simple bank account. The beautiful thing about this whole story is that setting up an offshore company is completely legal, but its use as a means of fraud is illegal. — You play on words, Dolores. —
In the case of the Panama Papers, the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca played the intermediary role in defining the best place to set up the offshore company and above all to hide the real creator of this structure - fictive —. The company then calls on nominees who will manage all the administrative aspects of these companies under the boss's account.. In this way, the fraudster can carry out all the operations of the company through the law firm which will carry out them under the identity of the manager.
Mossack Fonseca archives leak reveals many personalities : Heads of State, artists or sportsmen. In the midst of this crowd of names, we find the names of Gérard Autajon and Marcel Hermann.
Who is Gérard Autajon ?
Gérard Autajon is a wealthy French industrialist with an estimated fortune of 130 million euros which occupies 401st place in ranking of the greatest fortunes in France de Challenges. Gérard Autajon is at the head of a company in Montélimar which bears the sweet name of "Autajon". With three sites and more than 700 employees, the company is officially the city's largest private employer.
With more than 3,500 employees in Europe and the United States and a turnover exceeding 500 Millions of euros, the Autajon Group is one of the main players in the packaging and labels market.
He makes folding cases, tags, boxes and POS, for various sectors such as Perfumes & Cosmetics, Pharmaceutical industry, wines & Spirits, or the Chocolates-Cafés-Teas. Many winegrowers and traders have gone through this company for the production and printing of their labels.
Gérard is not only in the label since he is also in the Panama Papers list. In 2013, he creates two front companies based in Honk-Kong called Forever United Limited and Noble Shining. Thanks to this tax trick, Gérard Autajon was able to conceal a very small sum from the Fisc : 21,6 millions of euros.
In 2013, this microscopic sum of money leaves Gérard Autajon's Swiss account to join HSBC in Honk-Kong on behalf of front companies. The money is then transferred to a bank in the Bahamas, then joined the Netherlands to finally end up on an account in Luxembourg. Behind this montage, it is the Mossack Fonseca law firm that the Panama Papers leaked from.
What is beautiful about it all…
A few months before organizing this "tax optimization" package, Gérard Autajon closes for economic reasons the Bopack factory he owned. With this closure, Gérard Autajon put, in general indifference, 37 employees at the door with all the consequences that this implies for employees and their families.
The elected ecologist in the Senate, Jean Desessard then questioned the then Minister of Productive Recovery Arnaud Montebourg on the future of the Bopack company "whose employees should be made redundant soon while the Autajon group is a beneficiary. The conclusion of this elected ecologist is as follows : “It is difficult not to think that the slow economic degradation due to the abusive rental of unused machines was organized by the Autajon group in order to cause the bankruptcy of Bopack, was, before its redemption, a competitor of other group companies. This is certainly a manipulation that consisted in buying a flourishing company to condemn it so that the other companies in the group retain their place in the market. "
The Force Ouvrière union, majority at Autajon, se sent trahi. According to the organization, there has always been transparency and dialogue in the company. "We wrote an open letter to request a meeting with Gérard Autajon", details Arnaud Pichot, the delegate F.O. “Employees want explanations, in addition there could be repercussions on the company. Management and unions have just wrapped up annual wage negotiations. Employees accepted efforts : their participation bonus has been halved this year.
Who is Marcel Hermann ?
Marcel Hermann is a former chartered accountant who started in 1999 in viticulture by buying for 700’000 € the domain of Mas de la Barben, in Languedoc. In 2003, our masked knight opens the capital of his vineyard to European Wine Trading, then to sell him his shares in 2006. This holding, managed by a law firm, owns an offshore company in the British Virgin Islands named Kettman Portfolio Inc.
In 2013, Marcel Hermann declared under oath to be the economic beneficiary of this offshore company. Thanks to that, the to invest, through a tax haven, in shares of a Luxembourg holding company which would have invested in its own vineyard, Le Mas de la Barben…
The interest of this tax manipulation allows Marcel Hermann to recover the dividends from his own vineyard via his offshore company, without paying taxes on it. It would also make it possible to put money held abroad in the Mas de Barben without going through the tax box.
The second possibility, more likely, is to inject money held abroad back into the Mas de la Barben. Offshore company Kettman opened funded bank account, over the years, by several million euros for the benefit of European Wine Trading, in the form of a repayable credit line. These transfers could be intended to finance the entry of European Wine Trading into the capital of Mas de la Barben, then its full buyout in 2006.
The sale of the vineyard to European Wine Trading was for Marcel Hermann the start of his success.. With the proceeds of the sale, he was able to buy his first clinic in the south of France. Ten years later, its Medipôle-Partenaires group weighs more than one billion euros. Thanks to that, he was able to redeem in 2012 Le Mas de la Barben.
It is important to have a finish
Before writing this article, and certainly before you read it, it would have seemed unlikely to see alongside Platini, Cahuzac, Balkany or even relatives of Marine and Jean-Marie Le Pen, people linked to the world of wine. The full list of personalities involved has not yet been released, but new surprises may still arise…
Jean-Nicolas Mouretin
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