The Panama Papers form a leaked set of 11.5 million confidential documents created by the Panamanian corporate service provider Mossack Fonseca that provide detailed information on more than 214,000 offshore companies, including the identities of shareholders and directors. The documents identify (as directors and shareholders of such companies) current government leaders from five countries — Argentina, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine and the United Arab Emirates — as well as government officials, close relatives and close associates of various heads of government of more than 40 other countries, including Brazil, China, Peru, France, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Syria and the United Kingdom. Comprising documents created since the 1970s that amount to 2.6 terabytes of data, the papers were supplied to the Süddeutsche Zeitung in August 2015 by an anonymous source, and subsequently to the U.S.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). The papers were distributed to and analyzed by about 400 journalists at 107 media organizations in more than 80 countries. The first news reports based on the set, along with 149 of the documents themselves, were published on April 3, 2016, and a full list of companies is to be released in early May 2016.
Panama Papers Series
Panama Papers: how Mossack Fonseca should manage its reputation crisis
Apr 07, 2016 05:52 am UTC|
Insights & Views Business
The massive global reaction to the Panama Papers story is a classic example of an organisation, in this case Mossack Fonseca, facing a huge reputation crisis. And not just the law firm: we have already seen the resignation...
Panama Papers Series
Whistleblowers and leak activists face powerful elites in struggle to control information
Apr 07, 2016 05:50 am UTC|
Insights & Views
The Panama Papers have brought the powerful role of whistleblowers back into the public consciousness. Several years after WikiLeaks Cablegate and the Snowden revelations, the next big leak has not only caused the downfall...
Panama Papers Series
Panama Papers will do little to dent the electoral ambitions of Le Pen and FN
Apr 07, 2016 05:48 am UTC|
Insights & Views Politics
Marine Le Pen is among the latest prominent figures to be swept up in the Panama Papers scandal. But anyone hoping that this scandal can halt the rise of her far-right Front National movement has seriously underestimated...
Panama Papers Series
Why Vladimir Putin will hardly flinch at Panama paper cut
Apr 07, 2016 04:53 am UTC|
Insights & Views Law
The world remains gripped by the revelations made in the papers leaked from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca. But Moscow has greeted the coverage with what might be characterised as calm indifference.
Aware that...
Panama Papers Series
Panama Papers: it's the drip-drip effect Vladimir Putin will be worrying about
Apr 06, 2016 10:50 am UTC|
Insights & Views Politics
The early Russian media reaction to the claims from the Panama Papers that Putins close associate channelled more than $2 billion to offshore companies has been quite predictable: a combination of denial, counter-claims of...
Panama Papers Series
Panama Papers' dodgy middlemen are nothing new, as our own tax scandals show
Apr 06, 2016 05:31 am UTC|
Insights & Views Law
The unprecedented leak of millions of documents, known as the Panama Papers, from tax haven law firm Mossack Fonseca prompted me to pick up an old book on my shelf. Written in 1969, Adventures in Tax Avoidance: with 120...
Panama Papers Series
What are 'tax havens'?
Apr 05, 2016 13:08 pm UTC|
Insights & Views Law
The Panama Papers leak sheds some light on the intricate ways in which the wealthy can exploit secretive offshore tax regimes. As well as charging minimal or no tax to residents and non-residents, the main characteristics...
Economy 
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