Recently, an Australian judge ordered two major media outlets to pay conservative economist Peter Schiff over half a million dollars in damages. The ruling pertained to defamation directed at Schiff regarding the investigation between the IRS and several other countries in what has been called the “biggest tax evasion investigation in the world.”
Reportedly, authorities scoured the financial documents of Schiff’s bank that he runs in Puerto Rico but could not find any evidence to charge the economist with. However, government agents apparently leaked the investigation to the New York Times and the Australian-owned media outlets The Age and 60 Minutes. Allegedly, reporting on the investigation led to serious regulatory consequences for Schiff and his bank, Euro Pacific.
Therefore, Schiff named The Age, 60 Minutes, and two reporters in a lawsuit for coverage of the incident. Supposedly, the reports implied that Schiff was guilty of crimes related to money laundering and tax evasion, where a judge ruled an exaggerated segment was defamatory. Furthermore, the findings of the lawsuit suggested media outlets were attempting to create a narrative around Euro Pacific.
According to one 60 Minutes source, an anonymous emloyee of the bank said, “in terms of [anti-money laundering], they seemed to be strong. I personally didn’t experience a situation where something out of place was going on.” Another former employee said that is prospective customers expressed interest in evading taxes, the response would be “good luck with that buddy, but you ain’t getting an account at this bank.”
Reportedly, the journalists, Charlotte Grieve and Nick McKenzie, obtained an interview with Schiff by lying about their intentions, before attempting to guilt Schiff with the existence of the investigation into his bank. “I’m putting to you that your bank has accounts for organized crime figures,” McKenzie told Schiff. “Then I have the basis of a lawsuit against you. So are you in fact telling me right now that you know for a fact that this crime syndicate is utilizing Euro Pacific Bank?” Schiff hit back.
“I’m the journalist here. I’m asking the questions here, sir,” McKenzie said. “Why is it the tax authorities in Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, America, and the Netherlands all believe your bank is facilitating tax evasion and serious organized crime? … It’s a fact that organized crime, tax evaders, fraudsters are using your bank,” the journalist continued.
Nine Media provided a statement, reading, “60 Minutes accepts that the Federal Court found the program conveyed meanings that were not intended by the program, noting the barriers posed by the current state of defamation law in Australia to important public interest journalism. The Euro Pacific Bank was the target of the world’s largest tax evasion probe” and “was suspended in 2022 amid catastrophic regulatory failures.”
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Peter Schiff slammed the investigation, suggesting that the IRS illegally leaked the probe. “If the IRS didn’t leak it or even was mad that it was leaked, why did Jim Lee confirm it at a press conference?” he asked. “If it’s the subject of the largest tax investigation in history, then if they would have found the slightest infraction that normally they would have looked the other way, they would have brought that charge. But the bank was so clean that they couldn’t find a single thing,” he said.
Featured Image credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Peter_Schiff_(8568976629).jpg