A CONTROVERSIAL Glasgow firm has come under fire over its role as a favoured public relations company for Caribbean tax havens.
Media House, fronted by combative former newspaper editor Jack Irvine, has worked for the governments in the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands, as well as helping defeat proposals to introduce VAT in the Turks and Caicos islands.
Green MSP Patrick Harvie, who has been a critic of Media House’s domestic PR work, said: “It comes as no surprise that they also work hand in glove with tax havens, which have allowed multinationals to enrich themselves and drive up inequality here and around the world.”
However, 68-year-old Irvine defended his company’s clients. Asked whether Media House has any qualms about working for governments and financial interests in tax havens, he replied: “What a nonsensical question. The clients and past clients you refer to are perfectly legitimate governmental institutions and organisations who co-operate with tax authorities worldwide and share beneficial ownership information.”
Tax havens have again become an international news story after the leak of the so-called Paradise Papers. Originating from leaks from an offshore law firm and corporate service providers, the millions of files show how the rich use tax havens to minimise their tax bills.
Legal tax avoidance is believed to cost the UK Treasury tens of billions of pounds and the leak has fuelled calls for greater regulation of offshore entities, many of which are British overseas territories or Crown dependencies.
However, despite tax havens being under the microscope for years, the Glasgow PR firm created in the early 1990s has had a major role in advising financial and governmental interests in some of the jurisdictions dubbed “treasure islands”.
Media House International established its reputation in the PR world with campaigns for UK clients, but for nearly a decade the firm has provided political and media advice to what is describes as “offshore financial centres”.
According to the firm’s website Media House was initially “retained” by the Cayman Islands Financial Services Association (CIFSA), now known as Cayman Finance.
The company explained: “The instruction came from one of the world’s leading offshore lawyers, Anthony Travers, OBE, who had been tasked with chairing CIFSA after the newly-elected President Obama and the UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown started to bring unwanted pressures to bear on offshore jurisdictions.”
An agreement was “eventually” reached between CIFSA and the Cayman Islands Government to the effect that Irvine would also provide “strategic advice” to the islands’ premier and cabinet, especially “in relation to UK and EU initiatives”.
Irvine then represented Cayman at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office briefings that led to the 2013 G8 discussions on tax transparency, which critics believe produced an agreement that was too favourable to the tax havens.
In 2016, Oxfam published a report on the world’s “worst” tax havens and listed the Cayman Islands as number two in its league table.
After his work for Cayman at the G8 Irvine worked on a “successful campaign” to “thwart” the UK Government’s proposal to introduce VAT in Turks and Caicos, an overseas territory which levies no income or capital gains taxes.
According to Media House, other “highly confidential assignments” have been carried out for the British Virgin Islands Government and the administration in Gibraltar.
The BVI also made the Oxfam list on account of its tax policies and an alleged “lack of participation in multilateral anti-abuse and transparency initiatives”.
Speaking about how Media House’s business has developed, Irvine said in an in-house interview: “As the years went on, probably I’d say [in] the last 10 to 15 years we got much more international.
“Ten years ago, we got asked to work in the Caribbean on what you would call tax havens, or what we call offshore jurisdictions. That led to work in the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos, Gibraltar, British Virgin Islands.”
The Cayman Islands Government is still listed in the client section of the Media House website.
Irvine edited the Scottish Sun before leaving journalism to start his public relations company, which became notorious in 2000 for the campaign it ran opposing the repeal of an anti-gay rights move about the promotion of homosexuality in schools.
The company had been hired by SNP-supporting tycoon Sir Brian Souter to stop repeal and helped organise a private referendum.
Harvie added: “Media House has a record of working to promote some pretty disreputable clients, from the revolting campaign to keep the homophobic Section 2A, to the entitled elites of Scotland’s landowning class and the notorious retailer BrightHouse which specialises in exploiting the poorest communities.
Asked about the Cayman Islands and the BVI appearing on the Oxfam list Irvine said: “It is well known that large charities are a resting place and/or springboard for Labour supporters. I would be surprised if they said anything else about offshore financial centres. The politics of envy is not a pretty sight. One wonders if most donors truly know what activities they are supporting.”
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