It looks like the general public will now have an opportunity to look over the Panama Papers. “The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (“ICIJ”) announced that, on May 9th, it will release a database searchable by the public on more than 200,000 foreign entities included in the “Panama Papers”.” These documents contain about 11.5 million files from the law firm Mossack Fonseca which is a firm that specializes in the formation and administration of offshore entities. The information was first made public when an anonymous source leaked it to a German newspaper. This leak has created a global political scandal that has impacted political and business leaders in many different countries. This scandal brings attention to the issue of offshore tax evasion that is a problem that many jurisdictions have to face. Governments around the world are attempting to crackdown on these offshore tax avoidance schemes.
See Berger Singerman, Panama Papers Going Public, Lexology, April 29, 2016.
