Glencore loses fight with Australian taxman

Under-pressure commodities giant Glencore on Wednesday suffered another headache when it lost a case to stop Australian authorities using information leaked in the Paradise Papers.

FTSE 100 firm Glencore had argued that information from the Paradise Papers — a 2017 leak that revealed information on clients of law firm Appleby — should not be available to tax authorities because the material had been stolen.

Some of the documents detailed Glencore’s offshore financial arrangements and links to controversial businessman Dan Gertler.

However, the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) today got approval from the High Court to use information obtained from data leaks.

The ATO’s Jeremy Hirschhorn said the decision means his department can continue to use the Paradise Papers and other similar data leaks: “Once we have information we can’t just ignore it- we are obliged to use all relevant information we have.”

He added: “It would be a perverse outcome if the ATO and the Courts were not allowed to take into account information that the public at large can access, or had to forget information that is known.”

Glencore said it “respects today’s High Court decision”.