Banking on Failure: Cum-Ex and Why and How Banks Game the System

The (virtual) launch of a major new book which reveals the very significant role that the exploitation of tax systems has played in the development of modern banking. The book, by Richard Collier, and published by Oxford University Press, is a pathbreaking study that not only identifies the weaknesses of tax systems but identifies how banks gaming these systems has fed the development of financial products and markets.

At this event author Richard Collier presented the major themes of the book in conversation with Philip Baker QC (Field Court Tax Chambers) and Professor Dr Christoph Spengel (University of Mannheim). The discussion was chaired by Jenny Strasburg (Wall Street Journal).

Banking on Failure: Cum-Ex and Why and How Banks Game the System explains why banks design and use structured products to exploit tax systems. It describes one of the biggest and most complex cases - the 'cum-ex' scandal - in which hundreds of banks and funds from across the globe participated in the raid on the public exchequers of a number of countries, with losses in the tens of billions of euros. The book then draws on the significance of this case study in exploring what this tells us about modern banks and tax systems, as well as about the way banks interact with tax systems. Banking on Failure demonstrates why the exploitation of tax systems by banks is an inevitable feature of the financial markets landscape, and why the nature of tax systems actually facilitates the process. Some possible policy responses to the current position are suggested.

More details on this book can be found on the OUP website.

Richard Collier is currently Associate Fellow at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford. He was previously a Tax Partner with PwC, where he was the global leader of the firm's banking and capital markets tax practice. Richard has written many articles and recently co-authored (with Joe Andrus) a book, Transfer Pricing and the Arm's Length Principle after BEPS. He has recently worked as Senior Tax Advisor at the OECD. 

Image

Asset register 100007