Detectives from the Australian Federal Police have raided the offices of consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers as part of an investigation into former staff.
The offices of international consultants and auditors PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Sydney’s Barangaroo—at the southern end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge—have been raided by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) as part of an ongoing investigation into the leaking of confidential information.
The AFP are expected to remain there for days.
The firm had advised the government on new laws to cut down on tax avoidance by multinational corporations.
As part of that work, it had access to secret Treasury documents, which it then allegedly leaked to clients—including Google, Uber, and Facebook—to help them avoid the effects of those laws.
As a result, PwC’s then head of international tax, Peter Collins, was banned by the Tax Practitioners Board, though it later came to light that other former staff were also implicated.
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It eventually emerged that PwC had advised at least 14 companies on how to avoid the law, earning itself at least $2.5 million in fees.
The affair also claimed two of the company’s CEOs:…
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