Højesteret: SKAT may use Panama Papers; § 10 breach voids no assessment

Højesteret has settled two disputed questions on the use of leaked offshore data in Danish tax cases. In a judgment of 28 October 2026Domsdatabasen in cases BS-53826/2025-HJR, BS-53828/2025-HJR and BS-53832/2025-HJRDomsdatabasen, the court affirmed the landsret's judgmentsDomsdatabasen: SKAT was entitled to use purchased Panama Papers material in the basis for its decisionsDomsdatabasen, and any failure to observe retssikkerhedsloven § 10 did not render the resulting tax assessments invalidDomsdatabasen.

The cases arose from SKAT's 2016 purchase, from an anonymous source, of leaked data from a law firm in Panama. The material identified, among others, two Danish taxpayers as owners of the Panamanian company X Inc. and as holders of a power of attorney for the company. SKAT bought the material in order to open tax investigations into a number of the companies and persons named in it. In 2018 SKAT raised the taxable income of X Inc., Appellant 1 and Appellant 2Domsdatabasen: X Inc. was taxed in Denmark on transfers the two individuals had made to the company and on the ongoing return on the balance of the company's bank account in Luxembourg, while the two individuals were taxed on transfers from the company to themselves. The taxpayers challenged the assessments, arguing that reliance on leaked information acquired from an anonymous source was a case-handling error and that disregard of § 10 invalidated the assessments.

On the leaked data, Højesteret held that SKAT had been entitled to use the purchased Panama Papers as part of its statutory control aimed at securing correct tax collectionDomsdatabasen. The purchase served to initiate tax investigations into named companies and persons, and that use fell within SKAT's lawful control function rather than constituting a procedural defect that could displace the assessmentsDomsdatabasen.

On retssikkerhedsloven § 10, the court restated the protection: where there is concrete suspicion that a person has committed an offence punishable by penalty, the person is as a starting point under no duty to give the authorities informationRetsinformation, and the authorities must guide the person that there is no duty to disclose information that may affect assessment of the suspected offenceDomsdatabasen. That safeguard, reflected in the preparatory works' link to the right under artikel 6, stk. 1, of Den Europæiske Menneskerettighedskonvention not to speak about the alleged offence and not to be compelled to assist in clearing it upDomsdatabasen, serves a criminal-justice interest of significance for a criminal caseDomsdatabasen. Its purpose is not to secure the correctness of a tax assessmentDomsdatabasen. A failure to observe § 10 during the administrative handling of a tax case therefore does not make the tax assessment invalid, whether viewed under § 10 or under artikel 6, stk. 1Domsdatabasen.

The practical result is that the assessments against Appellant 1, Appellant 2 and X Inc. standDomsdatabasen, with no other basis for setting the tax authorities' assessments asideDomsdatabasen. For advisers and authority caseworkers, the precedent separates the two tracks: § 10 and the right against self-incrimination constrain how information duties are used against a suspect in a criminal contextRetsinformation, but they do not unwind an otherwise founded assessment of taxable incomeDomsdatabasen. Legal basis: retssikkerhedsloven § 10; Den Europæiske Menneskerettighedskonvention artikel 6, stk. 1Domsdatabasen.