Read the initial assessment issued by the UK NCP concluding the specific instance - 16 June 2014

In November 2013, the UK NCP received a request for review from a UK NGO and a US labour union alleging that a multinational enterprise was breaching the disclosure provisions of the Guidelines in the United Kingdom.

More specifically the notifiers alleged that:

• the company’s corporate tax arrangements unfairly reduced the tax it has paid in the UK, and that this resulted in adverse impacts on UK citizens;
• the company has failed to make sufficient disclosures about these transactions.

The notifiers therefore wanted the company to publicly disclose and explain the tax implications of the relevant transactions, and to institute a company policy that prohibits similar transactions in future.

The company accepted an invitation from the UK NCP to respond and said that the allegations were baseless. The company stated that some of the transactions referred to did not involve the company and so are not for it to disclose and that the transactions that did involve the company were disclosed to its directors and shareholders before being undertaken, and subsequently published and audited in its financial statements. The company said that that these transactions were on arm’s length terms, and that it complied fully with all applicable tax laws and regulations of countries where it operates and has no inquiries or investigations pending by any tax authority into the matters raised by the notifiers.

The NCP undertook an initial assessment of the specific instance and concluded that the allegations did merit further consideration but not by the UK NCP.