The ‘Luxleaks’ whistleblowers trial should concern us all

The trial of Antoine Deltour, Raphael Halet, and Edouard Perrin opens today in Luxembourg. Reporters should mob the courtroom. Camera crews should block the streets outside. I cannot think of a more important case, or one that reveals more clearly how tax havens punish those who reveal injustice rather than those in multinational businesses and accountancy firms who are –  oh, how can I put this without troubling the legal department? – who are, shall we say, content that the authorities do not apply the same level of scrutiny to them.

After the Panama leak revealed how dictatorships and organised crime, along with less colourful evaders and avoiders flourished, let us hope that the Luxembourg trial gets the publicity it so richly deserves, and prompts a global campaign against this equally piratical statelet.

Deltour anticipated the Panama scandal. He is a polite, moral man, who had never sought publicity let alone payment for his story.