World press gets stuck into scandal

“AIB hit by scandal over tax evasion”, ran the headline in the later editions of the Financial Times yesterday.

Once again, AIB’s problems hit the headlines of the financial pages around the world.

The FT’s John Murray Brown concluded his report on the bank’s latest tale of woe by saying: “The development marked the latest in a series of embarrassing disclosures about AIB activities.”

The Wall Street Journal’s Dow Jones Newswire flashed a story under the headline, “Allied Irish Banks Admits Ex-Execs Ran Tax-Dodging Acct.”

The report said that Ireland's largest company had: “Admitted Thursday that five former executives ran a tax-evading offshore account for seven years until 1996, the bank's third embarrassing admission of improprieties this month.”

Most reports contained very little analysis but re-traced the bank’s scandals back to the Rusnak debacle.

Reuters, under the headline “AIB under fire over new probe revelation”, said: “Allied Irish Banks has been told it will have to answer to the Irish parliament after it revealed the latest in a string of controversial revelations.”

The London Evening Standard’s headline, “Allied Irish tax evasion sparks uproar”, ran over Guy Dresser’s story. The report opened with: “Irish politicians are set to haul bosses at Allied Irish Bank before a formal enquiry following the third disclosure in less than a month of admissions of inappropriate dealing transactions, tax evasion and dodgy practices.”

The influential Australian Financial Review, using a report from AFP, carried the succinct headline: “New problems at Ireland’s biggest bank.”

The Baltimore Sun, which covered the Rusnak rogue-trader scandal in great detail as it lead to the sell-off of the city’s biggest bank All-First to M&T, also carried the story.

Its strap headline hit to the core for its readers: “Allied Irish Banks, former All-First Bank parent, says former executives ran tax-dodging account.”

The Sun’s final paragraph of the report reads: “Tax evasion was rife in Ireland throughout the 1970s to 1990s, when AIB and other banks encouraged thousands of ordinary citizens to evade high income taxes with bogus offshore accounts.”