Mon. Dec 2nd, 2024

Financial Enquiries

10/2017 Tax Dodging under Review:  What are the Paradise Papers?

‘The Paradise Papers is a special investigation by the Guardian and 95 media partners worldwide into a leak of 13.4m files from two offshore service providers and 19 tax havens’ company registries. The files reveal the offshore financial affairs of some of the world’s biggest multinational companies and richest individuals, and set out the myriad ways in which tax can be avoided using artificial structures’ (source – The Guardian).

A guide to the Paradise Papers published by Quartz, can be found here  The UK’s Guradian newspaper has a special ‘landing page’ for the subject here.

The operations of law firm Appleby who have offices at 22 Victoria Street, Canon’s Court, Hamilton HM 11, Bermuda, are under the spotlight after millions of its documents were disclosed in the Paradise Papers leak (source – BBC). Offshore law firm Appleby’s response: ‘no evidence of wrongdoing’ (source – The Guardian).

On 05/11/2017, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists [ICIJ] released the papers.  Apparently with 95 media partners they explored over 13 million files from “files of offshore law firms and the company registries in some of the world’s most secretive countries.” The ICIJ’s web site contains the ‘OFFSHORE LEAKS DATABASE‘ a searchable resource.

The ICIJ apparently said, “The Paradise Papers documents include nearly 7 million loan agreements, financial statements, emails, trust deeds and other paperwork over nearly 50 years from inside Appleby, a prestigious offshore law firm with offices in Bermuda and beyond (source – Bernews).

International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.  The Paradise Papers is a global investigation into the offshore activities of some of the world’s most powerful people and companies:

  • Two offshore firms, 19 secrecy jurisdictions, 13.4 million files. The Paradise Papers expose the secrets of the global elite; information and videos – click here.
  • Appleby – click here

07/11/2017. Bermuda’s Premier David Burt has apparently said ‘We will be aggressive in defending our reputation as we have nothing to hide’ and “Bermuda is an open, transparent jurisdiction. We have a vigorous regulatory framework” (source)

Presumably, it is this aggression that has previously seen an Auditor General in Bermuda arrested and the transparency which has enabled the islands to establish $800 million of public money was unaccounted for … just how is such a sum untraceable in such a transparent environment?

This same transparency saw a police commissioner and island Premier seek to prevent the release of information, an action that failed at the Privy Council in London.