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Panama Papers Affair Widens As Database Goes Online (bbc.com)
In late April, it was reported there would be a huge new 'Panama Papers' data dump on May 9th. The report did not disappoint as today the Panama Papers affair has widened, with a huge database of documents relating to more than 200,000 offshore accounts posted online. The database can be accessed at offshoreleaks.icij.org. The papers were leaked by a source known as "Jony Doe," and the papers belonged to the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) decided to make the database public despite a "cease and desist" order issued by the law firm.
Not really. The point of having an "offshore account" is to keep money somewhere financially better than one's own country, primarily to avoid taxes.
For instance, let's say I'm going to be making a large transaction, such as selling a luxury yacht and buying a bigger one, but I live in a country where such a transaction would be taxed heavily. It is financially beneficial for me to set up a shell company in a foreign country, sell that company my current yacht (for a small-but-legal price), then have that shell company sell the yacht and collect the income. Taxes on the income would be paid, but at the low rate of the foreign country. Then the shell company can borrow money from me to buy the new bigger yacht, and pay me a small amount in interest on that loan, which conveniently works out to be exactly the cost of renting the yacht to me, so it's a legitimate practicing business.
The foreign company can then also hire crew for the boat, under a contract with another company (possibly from a third country) to provide labor, so my crew doesn't have to be subject to my own country's labor laws.
The fun part is that not only is this legal, but in the United States, it's a First Amendment right. Courts have upheld that you have the right to decide (except for discrimination) who you will do business with as a matter of free expression, summarized in the common suggestion to "vote with your wallet". If I choose to sell my yacht to a foreign company at a huge loss, that's my choice. From then on, it's entirely a foreign business, and my home country's laws have virtually no effect.
Now, eventually if I want to sell my yacht and bring my money back home, that's another matter... then my country's laws can have an effect, and I can be taxed heavily, but if I don't need the money, then there's no reason to move it from its foreign tax haven.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
If I am not mistaken, the fact that these accounts are legal is a significant contributor to the public outrage (fabricated or otherwise) concerning this media event.
EG, if there were no laws against poisoning pigeons in the park, then a group of kids showing up with cans of bugspray and hosing down birds to watch them flop around until dead would not be illegal. That does not mean that the behavior is socially acceptable-- just not illegal in this contrived example. (Yes, I am well aware that it is indeed illegal to poison pigeons in most western countries. This is just an analogy; tortured and not ideal perhaps, but just an analogy.)
The real world example of the panama papers reveals a substantive effort by many power elite to obfuscate holdings, financial connections with industries they may be regulating as elite power brokers, and dealings with agencies or groups of less reputable character, as well as run of the mill tax avoidance, and sheltering of assets from unsteady local economies.
The practices are not "illegal", but they are socially unacceptable, which is why there is a scandal. The fact that "such things are actually legal" throws gasoline on the fire, not water.
Another tortured analogy might go something like this:
In many European countries, prostitution is perfectly legal. A conservative political figure publicly decries the practice of prostitution, but uses obfuscated holdings such as these to pay for such services on a very regular basis. No laws are violated-- the money was his to spend, and the service he obtained with it is legal. That does not make the circumstances stop being scandalous-- That of his blatant hipocracy, and abuse of client privilege to hide it to continue to snooker his electorate.
So, the fact that these accounts are not illegal does not remove the controversy, it is what causes it.
Can we move past that line of reasoning now?
There is no such thing as a cease and desist order, except when it comes from a competent court of appropriate jurisdiction. A C&D letter from a law firm is nothing more than a formal request to stop doing something -- granted, a sharply worded, hostile, threatening request, but a request nonetheless.
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
In the US, this only applies to evidence illegally obtained by law enforcement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Relevant quote: "Evidence unlawfully obtained from the defendant by a private person is admissible. The exclusionary rule is designed to protect privacy rights, with the Fourth Amendment applying specifically to government officials"