This Monday in Luxembourg, the appeal of Antoine Deltour as well as his co-defendents Raphael Halet und Edouard Perrin will begin. The former employee of PwC was, in cooperation with Halet and the journalist Perrin, the whistleblower behind the so-called Luxleaks scandal. He is accused of data theft and the transmission of business secrets. In June, he was sentenced to one year’s suspended suspence and a fine. I served as witness for the defence (1).
The Greens/EFA Group invites you to a press conference in Luxembourg on the appeal procedure:
Monday, December 12, 11:30 am
Representation of the European Parliament in Luxembourg (7, rue du Marché aux Herbes, L2920, Luxembourg)
And live: https://www.facebook.com/greensefa/?fref=ts
The MEPs present will be Pascal Durand, Benedek Javor, Claude Turmes and myself. In addition, we have invited the four whistleblowers Ana Garrido Ramos, Jonathan Sugarman, Brigitte Heinisch and András Horváth – see below for further info (2).
On Tuesday, 8:00 pm you have the chance to directly discuss the trial and the challanges we face to support and protect whistleblowers with Antoine Deltour himself in my online discussion “Europe Calling”. Furthermore, we will have the expertise of my colleague Julia Reda MEP and Anja Osterhaus from Transparency International. Please, finde more information and the link zu register for the discussion: https://sven-giegold.de/2016/europe-calling-whistleblowing
(2):
Ana Garrido Ramos: A key witness in the nation-wide corruption scandal embroiling the PP Party in Spain, she used to work in a local government (Boadilla del Monte, Madrid) until she discovered corruption in the awarding of public contracts. After suffering harassment at work she was awarded €95,000 in damages. However, the government of Boadilla appealed, so she’s had to sell her assets and now makes jewellery for a living to pay for the court costs.
Jonathan Sugarman: He was a Risk Manager of UniCredit Bank Ireland until he resigned from the post in September 2007, after which he reported serious financial irregularities to the Irish Financial Regulator. Essentially, the bank was pretending that it had a level of liquidity that was false. He reported this 14 months before the banking crisis exploded in Ireland and across Europe. The regulators failed to act on his alert, and he has now been unable to work for the past 9 years.
Brigitte Heinisch: (Germany)
She used to work in a state-owned nursing home in Berlin and discovered systematic practices of sub-standard health conditions, including examples of patients left in their own excrement for hours. She alerted her superiors but then eventually took the case to court as no action was taken in response. After fighting the case in the German courts for 7 years, she sought recourse before the European Court for Human Rights in Strasbourg, and won the case in a landmark ruling (HEINISCH v. GERMANY No. 28274/08)
András Horváth (Hungary)
He used to work as a tax inspector with Hungary’s National Tax and Customs Administration (NAV), and exposed corruption at governmental level which makes large scale VAT (value added tax) fraud possible. Horváth has submitted a report to Hungary’s Chief Prosecutor, backing his statement with documentary proof. He has been supported by major NGOs and his findings were underpinned by a study from Ernest and Young. He was at the European Parliament in February 2015 to present his case.