Back off! That’s the word from Liechtenstein’s Crown Prince Alois.
The tiny nation, said its ruler, would take legal steps to preserve its tradition of banking secrecy and protect clients from German officials. The larger European nation last week ramped up its investigation into suspected tax evasion (blogged here) by many wealthy Germans believed to be hiding money in the neighboring Alpine tax haven.
The prince also tried to redirect attention, according to this story in today’s New York Times,
by pointing out that most of the German evidence in the tax evasion
investigation came from an unnamed, and paid, informant who allegedly
stole the banking data years earlier.
Yep, it could get nasty. Well, as nasty as can be expected when you’re talking European royalty and the continent’s uber rich. Are you visualizing glove slap fights, too?
But when the whole sordid tale plays out, it could be a story interesting enough to spawn a 21st century sequel to "The Mouse That Roared."
