Conviction of ‘LuxLeaks’ whistleblower reversed: Luxembourg HC

Reversing the lower court conviction of ‘LuxLeaks’ whistleblower, Antoine Deltour, who was accused of leaking thousands of documents revealing tax breaks for major companies, the Luxembourg High Court has said that the second and third grounds of appeal hinging on an analysis of Articles 461, 463 and 464 on theft and nonviolent robberies in the Luxembourg Penal Code were unfounded.

In March 2017, Deltour was given a six-month suspended sentence and a fine of 1500 Euros for disclosing tax agreements at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) between the company’s clients including the Multinational Companies as well as the Luxembourg Direct Tax Authority.

Ruling in favor of Deltour, the high court has said that the appellate judges, by refusing to recognize a general character; covering all the incriminated facts committed in the same context and having resulted in the launching of the alert, to the cause of justification drawn from the status of whistleblower, violated Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights by false application.

Meanwhile, the court had sustained a similar sentence and fine for Deltour's former colleague and fellow leaker Raphael Halet, finding that he was not a whistleblower.