The Australian apologises to Virgin Blue
The Australian says that it has had to apologise to Virgin Blue, Brett Godfrey and Scott Swift as a result of articles published on May 20 and May 22 2006 about Virgin Blue’s alleged involvement in an Australian Taxation Office investigation of an alleged GST avoidance scheme.
The articles suggested that Brett Godfrey lured ILFC Inc, a US company, into the alleged GST avoidance scheme for personal gain.
In fact, Mr Godfrey recommended to ILFC that it consider a tax planning structure and in so doing he was not motivated by personal gain.
The Australian has accepted that Mr Godfrey was not the subject of the ATO investigation which reviewed the compliance of ILFC and The Australian says it is glad to correct the articles and apologises to Mr Godfrey for any embarrassment caused.
Some readers of the same articles may have inferred that Scott Swift deliberately destroyed documents relating to a tax avoidance scheme, after that scheme became the subject of an ATO investigation into allegations of tax avoidance by two other companies, ILFC Australia Pty Ltd and Interlease Aircraft Trading Corporation Inc.
The Australian also accepts that Mr Swift did not engage in any conduct which was improper and further accepts that Virgin Blue complied fully with ATO requests for information.
The Mole reported these stories verbatim from The Australian and in doing so made it clear that this was the manner in which they were being covered, crediting the Australian as the originator
Accordingly The Mole is pleased glad to see that these allegations have been found to be untrue and that The Australian has apologised to the parties.
John Alwyn-Jones
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