© BELGA
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Bernard de Laguiche, whose name appeared in the Pandora Papers this week, is stepping down from Solvay’s board of directors ‘for personal reasons’. The chemical giant itself announced this. It is, as far as we know, the first headline to roll in the global investigation into money being funneled into tax havens to escape the tax authorities.
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Thierry Goeman
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The resignation is dated September 24. Nor does Solvay comment further than that it is “for personal reasons”. But it’s an open secret that most of those involved in the investigation were already feeling the mood. This includes Bernard de Laguiche, who was contacted on September 2 by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), which was given access to a leak of 11.9 million documents about offshore structures. In a response, he said he had “managed in good faith” his assets. It is no coincidence that he took flight and resigned from his positions.
De Laguiche was one of the Solvay families that appeared in the Pandora Papers, alongside Aubertin and de Wangen de Geroldseck Aux Vosges. All descendants of the brothers Alfred and Ernest Solvay. Together they are said to have housed hundreds of thousands of Solvay shares, worth tens of millions of euros, in a series of mailbox companies in the British Virgin Islands. In this way one escapes the tax on dividends.
For more than a century – until 1967 – being part of the family was a precondition for being able to sit on the executive committee or on the board of directors. And even then, it wasn’t until 1998 that Solvay got a CEO who wasn’t part of the family. Not that the family has since let go of the reins: for example, Bernard de Laguiche was financial director of the group from 2006 to 2013 and headed the Solvac company, which unites more than 2,300 heirs of the Solvay dynasty and today more than Owns 30 percent of the shares of the multinational. He was born in Uccle but has dual French-Brazilian nationality. He lives in Southern Brazil, where he also does business ‘for his own account’. So now he is stepping down, leaving Solvay’s board of directors to just fourteen members. He has also made his mandate at Solvac available.
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