And here's another item from Reuters:
Panama Law Firm Says It Hasn't Been Approached By Investigators Yet
BERLIN, April 9 (Reuters) - The founding partner of Mossack Fonseca, the Panamanian law firm hit by a huge leak of offshore financial data, told a German newspaper his company had not yet been approached by anyone as part of investigations.
Ramon Fonseca also said the release of more than 11.5 million company emails was the result of hacking from a computer overseas rather than an inside job and that he knew which country the hacker attack had come from but was not allowed to disclose it. He had told Reuters on Tuesday the firm was a victim of a hack from outside.
"We're the ones who have filed a complaint with the authorities," Fonseca told Bild newspaper's Saturday edition.
"Every time there's something in the newspapers, the authorities announce they'll launch investigations. We're fully cooperating but we haven't been contacted by anyone yet."
Panama said on Wednesday that an independent commission would review the country's financial practices following the leak of information that has embarrassed a clutch of world leaders and forced Iceland's prime minister to resign.
Fonseca, who was a senior government official in Panama until March, said "thousands of lawyers around the world" were doing the same "completely legal" work as Mossack Fonseca, which specialises in setting up offshore companies.
Most of the offshore firms are in jurisdictions other than Panama, including Britain, the United States and the British Virgin Islands, Fonseca said.
"So why us? We see it like the biblical story of David and Goliath. Everyone has the right to privacy. Perhaps God chose us to fight for this fundamental human right or perhaps I'm mistaken," he added. (Reporting by Michelle Martin; editing by Catherine Evans)
Here's a news item by Reuters on how David Cameron said he could have handled the Panama Papers fallout a bit better:
Cameron Says He Mishandled 'Panama Papers' Tax Scrutiny
LONDON, April 9 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron said on Saturday he should have handled scrutiny of his family's tax arrangements better and promised to learn the lessons after days of negative media coverage and calls for his resignation.
After four days and four different statements over his late father's inclusion in the "Panama Papers", Cameron said on Thursday he once had a stake in his father's offshore trust and had profited from it, spurring calls for the leader to resign.
"Well, it's not been a great week," Cameron said on Saturday, speaking in London at a meeting of members of his Conservative Party. "I know that I should have handled this better, I could have handled this better. I know there are lessons to learn and I will learn them." (Reporting by William James and Paul Sandle; editing by Mark Heinrich)
And here's Ben Fox and Kenneth Silva from the Associated Press taking a look at the Panama Papers scandal from another angle:
Tiny British Virgin Islands Has Big Role In Leaked Documents
TORTOLA, British Virgin Islands (AP) — A thriving financial services industry that evolved over the last 30 years in the British Virgin Islands made it one of the most popular places in the world to form a corporation, turning a sleepy cluster of Caribbean islands into a global hub of finance.
Now the British Virgin Islands has come under scrutiny like never before thanks to the leak of confidential documents from a Panama-based law firm that specializes in offshore finance.
More than half the 200,000 offshore companies set up by the Mossack Fonseca law firm, including ones owned by the father of British Prime Minister David Cameron and relatives of Chinese leader Xi Jinping, were registered in the BVI, according to reports coordinated by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.
BVI officials have sought in recent days to address the reports while defending financial oversight in a territory where incorporated entities outnumber residents by a ratio of more than 10-to-1 and blue-suited lawyers and bankers on the streets of Tortola often outnumber tourists.
"If you see articles that say jurisdictions like the BVI are facilitators of illegitimate activity, that is incorrect," Financial Secretary Neil Smith said Friday. "Yes, it occurs, but it also occurs in jurisdictions that are not seen as offshore financial centers."
The British Virgin Islands, an overseas British territory of about 30,000 people near Puerto Rico, is the world's leading center for company incorporation, according to the Tax Justice Network. More than 1 million enterprises have been incorporated since 1984. There were 450,000 active ones at the end of last year, according to the Financial Services Commission.
The problem, as critics of offshore financial secrecy see it, is that the BVI and other jurisdictions enable the hiding of the true owners of companies in ways that allow corruption and criminality to flourish. "We're not saying that shell companies or tax shelters need to be done away with, we're saying that more of this needs to be out in the open," said Mark Hays, a senior adviser with Global Witness.
The Tax Justice Network says the BVI has a "lax, flexible, ask-no-questions, see-no-evil company incorporation," system. "The BVI has long been linked to wave after wave of scandals," the organization said in a report that ranked the BVI at number 21 on its financial secrecy index. The U.S. was No. 3 and Switzerland No. 1.
But the Tax Justice Network also notes that the British Virgin Islands has made significant improvements.
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