Antoine Deltour's support committee
May 19, 2018
On May 15th, the Luxembourg Court of Appeal fully recognised Antoine Deltour as a whistleblower within the meaning of the European Court of Human Rights. Antoine is therefore definitively acquitted of all charges concerning the copying and use of LuxLeaks documents.
With regard to the completely secondary part of the file related to the copy of internal training documents, the Court of Appeal suspended its pronouncement, meaning that Antoine is not subject to any criminal conviction. The only cloud on the horizon is about the symbolic euro that Antoine has to pay to PricewaterhouseCoopers, the audit firm where he worked and which filed a complaint after its outrageous practices were revealed.
Antoine commented: "This long legal battle ends in a great victory. This happy ending was only made possible by the very many supports received: 215 000 signatories of the petition, 71 organizations, 477 personalities, 3 wonderful lawyers, numerous legal testimonies, tens of thousands of euros collected... All this coordinated by an extraordinary support committee in its determination and commitment, to administer the website, the Twitter account, the mailbox and to facilitate the meetings (hats off to Romain).., to animate a Facebook page, to write newsletters (a very big thank you to François), to solicit organizations and personalities likely to express public support and/or to mobilize their networks (Jean-Sébastien and Pierre), to send T-shirts, to write reports and to correct everyone’s spelling mistakes (she will recognize herself...);), to organize (too) many "trips" to Luxembourg (Jean-Luc), to count, pay and read the emails (Coralie), to draw my face on hundreds of cups and T-shirt (thanks Julien, but you forgot some hair on my head), to translate (Viviane), to sing, to dub, to get up early to hold banners... and I apologize for all those I forget (including Justin, Amélie, François, Odile, Jean-Paul, Gérard, Sylvie, Louise, Alain, Julien, Sabine).
This is much more than just a show of solidarity, it is a true collective commitment that is even more remarkable than the judicial result.
We stand in solidarity with the two co-accused in the LuxLeaks case, Raphaël Halet and Édouard Perrin, whose judicial journey is not over. Raphaël Halet had announced his intention to continue the fight before the European Court of Human Rights after the rejection in January of his appeal in cassation. The journalist Edouard Perrin, who had been acquitted by the Luxembourg court, initiated proceedings in France to defend the secret of the sources. This resulted in him being ordered to pay 3,000 euros to PwC in legal fees, but he has appealed.
The LuxLeaks affair - together with the other tax scandals - has helped to fuel public debate and contribute to collective awareness about tax justice issues in Europe. Thanks to the tremendous action of civil society, on the one hand, and the will of national and European parliamentarians on the other, tangible progress has been made in the fight against tax evasion and the whistleblowers’ protection.
But these advances are still far from having put an end to tax evasion, and to guaranteeing protection to all whistleblowers... let everyone continue the fight at their own level!
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