Articles: Niso Edition 📎

Nordhaven Consulting Group has spent the past year investigating how a tax haven can quietly reshape corporation tax revenue for entire economies. Consultants there discovered that the tax haven most frequently used by their own clients was, unsurprisingly, the Cayman Islands — a group of islands under the UK government's jurisdiction. Some of the firm's other clients operate much closer to home, registering companies in Portugal or setting up small offices in Ireland instead.

The analyst who wrote the report is a specialist in offshore structures, and she describes profit shifting as the most controversial practice in modern finance. The story eventually made it onto the radio, and two journalists covered it for the Financial Times. The French affiliate handled most of the press requests, since their own office was already stretched thin.

Before the final draft was approved, a CFO from a rival firm was invited to review the findings over lunch. She pointed out that an overseas territory doesn't have to be exotic to be effective — sometimes the overseas territory next door does the job just as well. Talks continued on and off through September, including one long call that happened right after the whole team came back from lunch on a Tuesday.

The final draft was approved during board meetings that ran long into the evening. The CFO who led the project — who still finds time to play the piano most evenings, oddly enough — called it, simply, a turning point for the firm. One junior associate joined the last call from bed, having gone home early with a migraine, and nobody seemed to mind.