David
Cameron's father sought legal advice on best tax havens
Panama
Papers show Ian Cameron apparently ‘jurisdiction shopping’ for
best haven to secure his Blairmore Holdings fund
Holly Watt, Juliette
Garside and David Pegg
Thursday 7 April
2016 06.00 BST
David Cameron’s
father took detailed legal advice about the pros and cons of
different tax havens before the fund he had helped set up was
transferred to Ireland, the Guardian can reveal.
A leading
international law firm wrote an analysis of the Cayman Islands and
Bermuda as possible places to host Blairmore Holdings Inc, as it
considered whether to “migrate” the investment fund from Panama.
Blairmore was moved
in June 2012 to Ireland – another tax haven with many of the
advantages of offshore jurisdictions.
The Panama Papers
highlight how Blairmore’s directors wanted to continue to avoid
paying UK taxes at a time when David Cameron was already the leader
of the Conservative party.
And the move to
Ireland came in the same month as Cameron, by then prime minister,
was railing against tax avoidance schemes, describing them as morally
unacceptable.
“Some of these
schemes we have seen are quite frankly morally wrong,” he said.
Awkward questions
This latest
disclosure will add to the awkward questions facing Downing Street
from the Panama Papers leak.
While Cameron has
insisted he will not benefit from any offshore funds in the future,
he has not said whether he benefited in the past.
Papers seen by the
Guardian show the directors of Blairmore sought advice from the
London solicitors Simmons & Simmons in March 2008.
They were seeking
guidance on the advantages and disadvantages of moving Blairmore,
which was set up in 1982 with the help of Cameron’s father, Ian.
The fund was registered in Panama by Mossack Fonseca, the firm at the
centre of the Panama Papers leak.
The legal advice was
written for Cameron Sr and other directors, who appear to have been
“jurisdiction shopping” for the best place to secure the fund in
the future.
At the time, Panama
was coming under pressure from the Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development over the secretive nature of its regime.
A provate security
guard stands outside the building where Panama-based Mossack Fonseca
law firm is based, in Panama City. Photograph: Rodrigo
Arangua/AFP/Getty Images
The five-page
analysis was written by a lawyer who set out the benefits of
different Caribbean islands, noting that in one, the “level of
actual regulation is very light”.
“Both the Cayman
Islands and Bermuda are considered market-leading offshore financial
centres with sophisticated investment fund infrastructures,” noted
a lawyer at Simmons & Simmons.
“Both offer
political stability, an abundance of professional service providers
and responsive regulatory bodies.”
The document
explains how much it would cost Blairmore to transfer to Bermuda or
the Caymans.
Simmons &
Simmons said it would charge £40,000-£50,000 for a transfer to
either jurisdiction. It recommended additional support from another
law firm.
The Cayman move
would cost $7,300 on the island and £15,000-£17,000 in London.
Mossack Fonseca
would charge $4,500 for either move.
Simmons also noted
that: “In general, regulatory intervention in Bermuda is considered
slightly heavier than in some other offshore jurisdictions.”
The memo also
highlights the advantages of operating in the Cayman Islands.
It explains: “The
Cayman Islands is by far the jurisdiction of choice for hedge funds
and hedge-fund managers. By June 2007, over 8,300 registered mutual
funds were operating in the Cayman Islands.”
Ian Cameron died in
September 2010. In June 2012, the fund was shifted to Ireland, where
it is subject to EU regulations – which would have made it much
easier to market to European investors.
An email in the
Panama Papers between Mossack Fonseca employees discusses the
transfer to the different jurisdiction.
It says: “While
most of the holdings and cash will transfer out to the new Irish
fund, we will leave some funds behind – this will be less than 0.5%
of the fund’s total assets. There will be some cash left to pay
invoices and also a few companies which have not yet been sold and
are not eligible [for regulatory reasons] in the new Irish fund.”
Blairmore Holdings,
named after the Cameron family’s ancestral home in Aberdeenshire,
has managed tens of millions of pounds on behalf of wealthy families.
Clients have
included Isidore Kerman, an adviser to Robert Maxwell who once owned
the West End restaurants Scott’s and J Sheekey, and Leopold Joseph,
a private bank used by the Rolling Stones.
The Guardian has
confirmed that in 30 years Blairmore has never paid a penny of tax in
the UK on its profits.
Cameron addressed
the issue of tax avoidance head on in June 2012 after the Times
revealed the aggressive tax avoiding arrangements of the comedian
Jimmy Carr.
“I think some of
these schemes – and I think particularly of the Jimmy Carr scheme –
I have had time to read about and I just think this is completely
wrong.
“People work hard,
they pay their taxes, they save up to go to one of his shows. They
buy the tickets. He is taking the money from those tickets and he, as
far as I can see, is putting all of that into some very dodgy tax
avoiding schemes.
“That is wrong.
There is nothing wrong with people planning their tax affairs to
invest in their pension and plan for their retirement – that sort
of tax management is fine. But some of these schemes we have seen are
quite frankly morally wrong.”
Carr later changed
his tax arrangements.
Panama Papers
reporting team: Juliette Garside, Luke Harding, Holly Watt, David
Pegg, Helena Bengtsson, Simon Bowers, Owen Gibson and Nick Hopkins
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