German data theft tactics “unethical”

(JB) Luxembourg's finance minister has condemned German authorities for buying stolen information about German nationals with private bank accounts in the Grand Duchy.

Luc Frieden described the theft of a CD-Rom listing account holders with HSBC and its use to start legal proceedings as a “violation of Luxembourg criminal law.”

Responding to a parliamentary question raised by deputy Carlo Wagner, the minister said: “It is a behaviour which is a violation of our laws and is simply unethical. However, only the competent legal authorities can respond to the questions raised and decide which actions are appropriate to take.”

The German state of North-Rhine Westphalia reportedly bought the CD-ROM containing information about German tax evaders with money invested in HSBC Luxembourg for 3 million euros.

Mr Frieden said that the government had no further information about the contents of the CD-ROM or how it was obtained by the German authorities.

However, he underlined Luxembourg's efforts to tackle tax evaders and said he hoped the EU would pass a directive or that the two countries could reach an agreement to avoid such practices being used in future.

The use of stolen data to pursue legal proceedings against tax evaders is commonplace in Germany since it was made legal by the German Constitutional Court.

In 2009, it launched proceedings against German account holders in Switzerland, meanwhile in 2008 the state paid 5 million euros for similar information on German customers in Lichtenstein.

Last year, Berlin recovered 1.6 billion euros using stolen data to trace tax dodging Germans in Lichtenstein and Switzerland.