The leader of the United Kingdom's opposition Labour Party gives his views on the Panama Papers fallout:
The Panama Papers scandal now seems to have spread to Malta, according to this piece by Chris Scicluna for the Reuters news agency:
Malta's Opposition Demands Resignation Of PM Over Panama Papers
VALLETTA, April 10 (Reuters) - Several thousand people filled a big square in Malta's capital on Sunday and demanded the resignation of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat after the leaked Panama Papers said two of his political allies had offshore accounts.
"Shame on you, you are shaming Malta, you have lost the moral authority to govern," opposition leader Simon Busuttil said to the applause of protesters.
The rally, organised by the opposition outside the prime minister's office, drew no official comment from Muscat. He said on Wednesday that he would take a decision on the future of his two allies when he knows all the facts and on the basis of public sentiment.
The Nationalist Party opposition wants the removal of Health and Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi and the prime minister's Chief of Staff, Keith Schembri.
The Panama Papers showed how Mizzi set up a company in Panama and a trust in New Zealand.
Mizzi denies wrongdoing and says the arrangements were made to facilitate the management of his family assets, including income from a property in London. He has refused calls to resign and said he is subjecting himself to an independent audit.
However, on Thursday he told the ruling Labour Party he is ready for any decision that the prime minister might take.
Busuttil said the opposition is also calling for the resignation of Schembri, for having similarly set up a company in Panama and a trust in Panama. Schembri has denied any wrongdoing. He says that he was in business well before he assumed his government role and that he handed over his business management as soon as the government was elected in 2013.
The opposition has repeatedly hit out at Mizzi, who handled the government's biggest contracts, including the part-privatisation of the health service, the part-privatisation of energy provider Enemalta and an oil hedging agreement with Azerbaijan.
Busuttil said that although the scandal became known in Malta as early as February, Muscat had done nothing about it. Rather, he had promoted Mizzi to deputy leader of the Labour Party.
"His inaction is undermining Malta's reputation and endangering its financial services centre," he warned.
"How can the prime minister defend Malta's financial services industry in the EU when his fellow minister has a secret company in Panama?" Busuttil asked.
The opposition has presented a parliamentary motion of no confidence in the government.
The Panama Papers scandal broke a week ago when the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung said it had received 11.5 million leaked documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca showing how offshore companies are used to stash the wealth of the world's elite.
The leak quickly led to the resignation of Iceland's prime minister and embroiled British Prime Minister David Cameron in difficulties over offshore investments made by his father.
(Reporting by Christopher Scicluna; editing by Stephen Powell)
We are now closing the live blog for today. Until we resume again, you can catch up with all our other Panama Papers coverage here.
Good morning. We'll start the live blog today with this item that came in overnight from Reuters on more Panama Papers fallout in Britain:
Hit By Panama Row, U.K.'s Cameron Announces New Tax Evasion Law
LONDON, April 11 (Reuters) - British Prime Minister David Cameron will say on Monday that new legislation making companies criminally liable if employees aid tax evasion will be introduced this year, as he seeks to repair the damage from a week of questions about his personal finances.
Cameron published tax records on Sunday to try and defuse criticism over his handling of the fallout from the Panama Papers, in which his late father was mentioned for setting up an offshore fund.
After four carefully worded statements in four days, Cameron bowed to pressure and admitted that he had benefitted from selling his share in his father's fund in 2010. He recognised on Saturday that he had mishandled the disclosure.
Cameron is leading efforts to persuade British voters to stay in the European Union in a June 23 referendum that the polls suggest will be tight, and the tax row has raised concerns among the "in" camp that their cause may have been damaged.
The prime minister will attempt to regain the upper hand when he appears in the House of Commons later on Monday.
"This government has done more than any other to take action against corruption in all its forms, but we will go further," Cameron will say, according to advance excerpts of his statement circulated by his Downing Street office.
"That is why we will legislate this year to hold companies who fail to stop their employees facilitating tax evasion criminally liable," he will say.
The plan had already been announced by finance minister George Osborne in March 2015, but previously the commitment was to introduce the legislation by 2020, Downing Street said.
The decision to speed up that particular measure is unlikely to satisfy Cameron's many critics in opposition parties and in some campaign groups that say Britain already has the tools it needs to crack down on tax evasion but lacks the will.
The government rejects that, saying it has brought in more than 2 billion pounds ($2.8 billion) from offshore tax evaders since 2010 and has established a registry of company beneficial ownership information due to become public in June this year.
The furore over his own finances has come at a particularly bad time for Cameron, who is due to host a global anti-corruption summit in London on May 12.
He has also been struggling with deep divisions in his Conservative Party over EU membership, and the government has been embarrassed by a senior minister's resignation, a u-turn on welfare cuts and a crisis in the British steel industry it has failed to resolve.
And here's another Reuters item -- this time on Germany's response to the Panama leaks:
Germany Suggests Plan To Combat Tax Havens
BERLIN, April 10 (Reuters) - German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble gave details of a plan on Sunday to combat tax havens including creating an international network of registers that list the actual owners of companies.
A huge leak of documents from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca has shown how offshore firms are used to stash the wealth of the rich and powerful, embarrassing several world leaders.
Germany made closer international cooperation on tax evasion a priority during its presidency of the G7 economic powers in 2014/15.
Schaeuble told the public broadcaster ARD that if company registers listing the owners of firms were networked internationally, it would be possible to find all the people hiding behind offshore companies.
In the European Union, such registers have already been agreed as part of a fourth directive on money laundering that must be implemented at the national level by mid-2017.
Schaeuble also pointed to an agreement on automatically swapping tax information, which around 100 countries have now joined. It is due to come into effect in 2017. He said the Panama Papers were ratcheting up the pressure on those that had not joined, such as the United States, to sign up.
A government paper seen by Reuters showed other elements of Schaeuble's 10-point plan, including urging Panama and all other holdouts to join the tax data exchange agreement.
The paper said the Global Forum of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) should act as a supervisor to check that states were exchanging data and come up with effective sanctions for negligent or uncooperative countries.
It also showed that Schaeuble wanted the various national and international blacklists of non-compliant tax havens to be standardised, with an international organisation such as the OECD taking the lead.
Schaeuble said statutes of limitations for tax offences should only start once a taxpayer had fulfilled his or her obligation to provide information.
Banking watchdogs across Europe have begun checking whether lenders have ties to the Panama Papers but Schaeuble said German banks had "largely put things in order already", adding: "We have made a lot of progress in recent years."
The paper also said it was "not the task of banks to encourage aggressive tax avoidance" and said those that offered tax-saving schemes should be obliged to disclose these to tax authorities.
It said tougher administrative measures were needed to hold firms to account because effective prosecution of misconduct often failed as negligence by an individual could not be proved.
It also said tougher rules to combat money laundering had been introduced in Germany's financial sector in recent years and such progress was also needed in the commercial sector.
(Reporting by Michelle Martin and Matthias Sobolewski; Editing by Kevin Liffey)