EUROPEAN COSCIENCE – Protection for the brave

Anyone who has the guts to report crimes and illicit conduct must be protected by appropriate legislation. The European Parliament steps up.

Last February, Antoine Deltour sat in a Paris bar on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Denis and said with a slight smile that he was sure that within a month, the Appeals Court in Luxembourg would find him guilty. And he was right. On 15 March, the judges of the Granduchy sentenced him to a six-month suspended jail term and a fine of 1,500 euros. Deltour’s former colleague from the tax consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCooper, Raphael Halet, who was jointly responsible for the Luxleaks news leak, was also sentenced to pay a €1000 fine.