BAe Systems helping the Irish Homeless?

national | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Thursday June 18, 2009 18:00

by reject

Britains largest arms and defence company, BAe Systems, has been using an Irish- registered homeless charitable trust as a lawful device to shift assets off balance sheet and to lower its tax bill.

Britains largest arms and defence company, BAe Systems, has been using an Irish- registered homeless charitable trust as a lawful device to shift assets off balance sheet and to lower its tax bill.

Former cluster-bomb manufacturer BAe -- which has developed the F35 fighter bomber, the Challenger tank and the Queen Elizabeth Class Aircraft carrier -- has a subsidiary in Ireland called Trident Aviation Holdings (Ireland). The firm was used in a complex $2bn refinancing scheme related to the company's regional aircraft business.

"I would like to make it clear that BAe Systems has set up a financing rather than a complex tax scheme in Ireland," according to a spokeswoman. However, the corporate entity is now exposed to Ireland's low tax rate. Ireland's 12.5 per cent tax rate is less than half the UK rate.

However, BAe documents seen by the Sunday Independent indicate that all the shares in this firm are held by the Arbutus Homeless Person's Trust, "a charitable trust established under the laws of the Republic of Ireland, and which does not prepare consolidated accounts".

The Arbutus trust is a charity registered with the Revenue Commissioners. It is administered by an Irish commercial law firm.

Ive never heard of this group before... have a google if you dont believe me... they to my knowledge have done jackshit for the Irish Homeless Community....

Arbutus Homeless Person's Trust is run by Goodbody Trustees Limited, a company set up by A&L Goodbody, a well-known law firm in Dublin. The trust was set up in 1997," according to BAe.

BAe, which had sales of nearly €22bn last year, was unable to provide details about the charitable trust's activities, pointing out that it was administered by an Irish legal firm. However, it confirmed that it had not made any donations to the charity.

BAe has been boycotted by ethical protesters citing its involvement with nuclear weapons and nuclear submarines. Norway bans its national pension fund from investing in BAe over these links. The company has also been embroiled in controversy over a major Saudi Arabian arms deal involving the purchase of Tornado bombers.

what a set of scumbags...

Methinks this might get mighty interesting....

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Comments (3 of 3)

deadbody

by nh

Fri Jun 19, 2009 12:56

Goodbody- are they the same crowd who reckoned that there were not enough taxis on the roads in Dublin when they were asked for a report? And in another report they found that Corrib gas would benefit the economy of Ireland? Seems that they can do all sorts of tricks for their masters.

No- it must be a different crowd with the same name.

Non Violent hammers of history

by paul o toole - Power of one

Sat Jun 20, 2009 12:15

pauljotoole at eircom dot net

The Catholic Worker movement in Liverpool took a Non Violent Disarmament action against BAe in the UK. One of their Tornado Frontline Fighters were rendered immobile. The buyer was Suharto in East Timor who used the remaining 11 fighters to kill thousands of his citizens as Mobile Oil Coorporation loaned him excavating equiptment to bury the dead, but not after he ordered everyone not to bury any dead for three days as an example to the remaining victims, so the bodies remained laying in the streets as dogs ravaged them.
The NVDA activists were acquitted by a liverpool jury.....

The Irish Government benefits to the tune of €5,000,000,000 (5 bil) every year in weapons manufacturing, it will not be surprising to see inaction on the part of the powers that be in Eire to do nothing.

The same hammers used to damage the US Military warplane in Shannon to prevent genocide in Iraq were the same ones used in BAe Systems to prevent Genocide in East Timor.....
They were on display in the project Arts Centre in Dublin three months ago.....mabey one day we'll see them as a permanent display in our own National History Museum beside Dail Eireann as a reminder of the atrcities that the Irish Government willingly took part in by assisting genocide in Iraq and Afghanistan...and now Pakistan....
Joe Duffy done a show about the hammers on display in the Project Theatret , trying to ridicule the display, and showed his very right wing support for war and genocide as a Government supporter for the crimes they commit.
The NVDA activists in Dublin were also acquitted but Kenny, Duffy, Turbidy, Ryan, Finnucane, Hook, and the rest of Irelands Finest in unbiased journahilism continnued to call them criminals.....

Mabe a piket outside the lawfirm could get underway.....
Fraud, warcrimes, genocide, destruction of a soverign nation, cluster bombing, Napalming, radioactive poisoning......to name a few...

BAe - how nasty they play

by Ciaron - Ploughshares/Catholic Worker

Sun Jun 21, 2009 03:06

My relationship with BAe is a long one and seems it's going to be lifelong as in '96 they slapped a high court (London) court injunction on me within 6 weeks of my initial '96 arrival in England. 12 other activists were also targeted for injunction by spies that had infiltrated "Campaign Against the Arms Trade" and the scene around the ploughshares trial in Liverpool in '96.

The offer was to accept the injunction (limiting ones free speech with max sentences of 2 years) being lifelong and be free of court costs incurred (and inflated by acocuntants) by BAe. Four of us targeted refused and had a few hours unsuccessfully defending ourselves in Judges Chambers at the high court in London at the end of '96....we were left with 100 grand legal bills each.

After Special Branch's failure to infiltrate the Liverpool Catholic Worker at its outset (offering a former policewoman 200 quid for every LCW meeting she attended and bonuses for info on organisers), BAe went to a private intelligence agency, that placed a spy in our extended community for 3 years...helping to bring down the LCW community.

BAe ran 6 agents in the more mainstream Campaign Against the Arms Trade. This is a very good article in the Guardian by comedian Mark Thomas as he slowly comes to accept his CAAT fulltimeorganiser is actually a BAe spy...check it out http://www.indymedia.ie/article/85347

Continued on the above MT thread is more info on Bae's infiltration of the Liverpool Catholic Worker, home to East Timorese exiles at the time.

It is instructive that the last act of Blair before standing down was to cancel a Serious Frauds Office inquiry that had been running for tow years into a billion pound slush fund set up by BAe for a Saudi prince...that's how powerful, nasty and tooled up they are.

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BAe Systems helping the Irish Homeless?

Comments (3 of 3)