How crooked is Barclays?

The Guardian reports that

A Barclays bank executive claims to have been made redundant after raising issues relating to one of the bank's tax avoidance schemes.

But Barclays pulls the old "no evidence" stunt, claiming that ""no evidence has been found" to back the claims. As if they had a really good look.

Censorship fails

The Guardian is today having a laugh at the expense of the judge who made it take the leaked Barclays tax evasion documents off its website. It is quoting a statement in the House of Lords, Matthew Oakeshott, the Lib Dem Treasury spokesman, who pointed out all the other sites on which the documents can be found. The Guardian was prevented even from telling its readers this but Oakeshott's statement is protected by parliamentary privilege:

these documents are widely available on the internet from sites such as Twitter, wikileaks.org, docstoc.com and gabbr.com

The sharp end

The Barclays tax evasion scandal is certainly at the sharp end of the battle between investigative journalism and corporate cover-up, as today's Guardian shows.

The Lib Dems are very much on the case and other MPs are very critical of Barclays tactics:

Paul Farrelly, MP for Newcastle-under-Lyme, said: "It is worrying that Barclays should resort to the courts like this to suppress genuine, investigative journalism. Now more than ever the public interest demands that a free press should investigate tax avoidance, especially where it occurs on a grand scale ..."

"The Guardian should be allowed to publish in the public interest and if Barclays wishes to contest the accuracy, it can always sue after the fact."

Richard Shepherd, Conservative MP for Aldridge-Brownhills, said: " It in the public interest that the Guardian wins. The gag should be lifted."

In arguments to the high court yesterday, Alan Rusbridger, the editor-in-chief of the Guardian, said: "I considered these documents to be of the highest significance in the debate about tax avoidance. They revealed at first hand the processes involved in structuring extremely complex and artificial tax avoidance vehicles; how lawyers and accountants worked together to exploit loopholes in government legislation; and the degree to which they are sanctioned at the highest levels within Barclays."

I'm calling this tax evasion rather than tax avoidance. Strictly speaking one is illegal, the other legal. But tax evasion is the only phrase that adequately describes using an army of lawyers and accountants to create artificial vehicles that are so complex that no-one can work out whether they are legal or not.

If Barclays has nothing to hide, why the need for the injunction?

Absolutely scandalous

So Barclays Bank indulges in large scale tax evasion and doesn't want us to know how it does it.

According to the Guardian, Barclays went to a judge in the early hours of this morning to gag the paper over leaked documents showing what it has been up to. What is more scandalous - that Barclays should rip off the taxpayer or that it should try - with some success - to cover its tracks?

Barclays and Mugabe

The Telegraph reports that:

The Liberal Democrats said yesterday that the alleged support was against the spirit of European Union sanctions, which specifically target prominent members of the Zimbabwe government.

The controversy has echoes of the 1980s when Barclays was boycotted by anti-apartheid activists and students for its links with South Africa.

I remember it well. It's probably hard being in banking and having to work out what is or isn't ethical in the pursuit of profit.