Would you agree that a private company has the right to possess confidential financial information? He stated two things were confidential:gavinmac wrote:What is Holmes' basis for saying the amount of the tax assessment and its validity and the discussions are "confidential"?
Is he claiming that he and his paper are barred by law from discussing the tax matters? If so, what law?
Is he claiming that the tax department has ordered him not to discuss it? If so, he should say that.
It sounds to me that when he says these matters are "confidential," this means nothing more than "The Phnom Penh Post does not want to be transparent and inform its readers and the general public about what is going on."
Why did the Post deem the tax assessment against the Cambodia Daily to be newsworthy but not the tax assessment against its own paper?
1) The exact figures and commercial discussions relating to the audit; and
2) The terms of a private loan with a bank.
I think that this is very different than with the Cambodia Daily, at least at the moment. The Cambodia Daily started to make the issue a very public one, and offered flimsy defenses that were right to be questioned. For the time being, the Post, a private equity, is confirming that an audit is taking place, but wishes to neither publicly contest it nor disclose the specific amounts. Isn't this par for the course anywhere else in the (business) world?