UPDATE 6 August: A spokesperson for the Tax Justice Network contacted International Investment, stating that it was "disappointed by recent attempts to misrepresent the Tax Justice Network, to publicly harass our staff and to claim sole ownership of the tax justice movement".

The spokesperson added: "Over the past strategy period 2016-2021, during which Alex Cobham served as our CEO and John Christensen remained directly involved in strategic decision making at the Tax Justice Network as a paid executive director until his long-planned retirement in May 2021 and more recent resignation as Chair, the Tax Justice Network grew sustainably and achieved unprecedented campaigning success - all while recovering from the financial brink and beginning to repair relationships that had broken down in the past."

Longstanding tax haven critic Richard Murphy, director, Tax Research and director, Corporate Accountability Network said in a 5 August letter published on his blog headed 'I resign from association with the Tax Justice Network' and further wrote that "since John [Christensen] considers me a senior adviser to TJN he copied his letter to me and gave permission for me to publish it on my blog".

Tax Justice Network chair John Christensen quit his role with immediate effect this week (2 August) followed today (5 August) by a 'resignation' letter from Richard Murphy.

A founding director of the network in 2003, Christensen also served as chief executive at the group until 2016.

In a letter to the network's board of directors he said he was leaving after "several years of mounting frustration and disenchantment" and "the switch away from being primarily a campaigning network to being principally research focused".

There now appears to be no one working at or advising TJN who has ever worked in tax, or accounting, or financial services. That was not true when we began."
This had led to " a situation in which a large part of TJN's staff are engaged in a repetitive cycle of producing the financial secrecy index or the corporate haven tax index on an annual basis".

Longstanding tax haven critic Richard Murphy, Director, Tax Research and Director, Corporate Accountability Network also wrote on (5 August) that he had  "resigned from association with the Tax Justice Network".

Murphy, who is also visiting professor at Sheffield, City and Anglia Ruskin Universities, said in a letter to its CEO Alex Cobham that "TJN's vision of social justice has been replaced by a desire to perpetuate employment for its staff by the production of ever more meaningless indices"

He said: "And instead of innovating policy solutions to influence debate TJN now ignores those who disagree with it and who it needs to influence, from the OECD onwards.

As for political economy, when once this underpinned TJN's thinking, now any understanding of it appears to be absent."

Murphy added: "Although that puts that issue alongside tax at TJN, where quite extraordinarily there now appears to be no one working at or advising TJN who has ever worked in tax, or accounting, or financial services. That was not true when we began. It's as if TJN has forgotten what it was all about.

Actually, that is a perfect summary of the real problem. TJN was set up to campaign for tax justice."