Paradise Papers
The Paradise Papers are a set of over 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer,[1][2] from the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The documents originate from the legal firm Appleby, the corporate services providers Estera and Asiaciti Trust, and business registries in 19 tax jurisdictions.
[6] Among those whose financial affairs are mentioned are, separately, AIG,[7] then-Prince Charles[8] and Queen Elizabeth II,[9] President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.
[10][19] According to the papers, Allergan (the manufacturer of Botox), Allianz, Apple Inc., Facebook, Global Vantedge, McDonald's, Nike, Inc., Siemens, The Walt Disney Company, Twitter, Uber, Walmart, and Yahoo!
The company's 2015 gross domestic product showed a 26% increase, and close to $270 billion of intangible assets suddenly appeared in Ireland as the year began – more than the entire value of all residential property in the country.
[citation needed] Following a 2013 US Senate investigation, which featured testimony by CEO Tim Cook, Ireland announced that henceforth Irish companies would be required to declare tax residency somewhere in the world.
The whole operation of assigning air routes was investigated by the Argentine federal justice system in a case called "Avianca" in which the President of Argentina Mauricio Macri and other officials were imputed.
A subsidiary of the Kremlin-controlled Gazprom funded an investment company that partnered with DST Global to buy shares in Facebook, reaping millions when the social media giant went public in 2012.
This transfer allowed the subsidiary to charge royalties to its European headquarters in Hilversum, Netherlands, effectively converting taxable company profits to an account payable in tax-free Bermuda.
Its profits were not declared in Europe and came to light only because of a mostly unrelated case in US Tax Court, where papers filed by Nike briefly mention royalties in 2010, 2011 and 2012 totaling $3.86 billion.
[55] Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais, a close associate of the son of former long-term president José Eduardo dos Santos, has invested over $2 billion from the country's sovereign wealth fund in Mauritius, according to Appleby documents.
Sally Kosgei, member of parliament 2008–2013 and minister of agriculture from 2010 to March 2013, owned a million-dollar flat near Harrods in London through an offshore she told Appleby was funded by her flower-export company.
[61] The Ghanaian Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, Ken Ofori-Atta, was a co-founder of Databank and a co-director, with Johnson Sirleaf, of Songhai Financial Holdings.
[63] President of the Nigerian Senate Bukola Saraki is listed in the papers as a director and a shareholder of Tenia Ltd., a company established in the Cayman Islands in April 2001.
The Panama Papers allegedly revealed that the Aliyev family had secret offshore companies used for various financial transactions, including the ownership of luxury properties and involvement in lucrative business deals.
[97] Nenad Popovic, Serbian Minister for Innovation and Technology and owner of the Russian conglomerate ABS Electro has a residence in a wealthy Zürich suburb, known for its tax shelters.
[105] The papers show that the Duchy of Lancaster, a private estate of Queen Elizabeth II, held investments in two offshore financial centres, the Cayman Islands and Bermuda.
[107] Labour Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn posited whether the Queen should apologize, saying anyone with money offshore for tax avoidance should "not just apologise for it, [but] recognise what it does to our society".
[108] The papers also show that in June 2007, the Duchy of Cornwall, a possession of Prince Charles, invested $113,500 in Sustainable Forestry Management,[106] a Bermuda-based carbon credits trading company run by Hugh van Cutsem.
[109] Four weeks after the Duchy of Cornwall purchased shares in Sustainable Forestry Management, Prince Charles made a speech criticising the European Union Emission Trading Scheme and the Kyoto Protocol for excluding carbon credits from rainforests, and called for change.
[110] James Meyer Sassoon, the 2007 president of the international Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering,[65][111] said that his $236 million trust[112] revealed in the papers had been established years before by his grandmother with funds that had not been earned in the UK and therefore were not subject to tax there.
[114] The BBC also noted questions about investments by Conservative Party donor Michael Ashcroft and Farhad Moshiri, owner of Everton Football Club.
High-profile Mexicans in the files include billionaire Carlos Slim,[124] priest Marcial Maciel known as "the greatest fundraiser of the modern Roman Catholic church",[124] and Ricardo Salinas Pliego.
[124] In an interview with Proceso, Alejandro Gertz Manero Attorney General of Mexico and formerly National Security Secretary, denied all knowledge of the company, of which he was vice-president, and which was started by his brother, its president.
They include casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; resort owner Steve Wynn; hedge fund managers Robert Mercer and Paul Singer; and private equity investors Tom Barrack, Stephen Schwarzman, and Carl Icahn.
She had pledged to divest from more than 200 firms when she was confirmed as President Barack Obama's commerce secretary in 2013, but records show that she transferred assets to a company owned by her children's trusts, which shared the same address as her office.
[134] The late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein also figures in the Paradise Papers, as chairman from at least 2000 to 2007 of a Bermudan-registered company, Liquid Funding, Ltd., partially owned by Bear Stearns.
[135] Economist Gabriel Zucman and his colleagues estimate that 63% of foreign profits made by American multinational corporations are stored in subsidiaries and offshore accounts, depriving the country of about $70 billion in tax revenue each year.
[145] Possible reasons include the absence of overt illegality in the information; most media sources are careful to point out that the schemes in the Paradise Papers are generally lawful.
[151] He also averred that despite having the information since 2016, the timing of the release was deliberately delayed to coincide with the meeting of EU Finance Ministers ahead of the proposed discussion of a tax haven blacklist.
