Risk Update

Pandora Papers Risk — Big Leak, Big Risk, Big Law Firm Questions

Posted Dan Bressler

Plenty being written about these new revelations. Have had an eye out for interesting law firm angles in: “Pandora Papers: An offshore data tsunami” —

  • “The Pandora Papers investigation also reveals how banks and law firms work closely with offshore service providers to design complex corporate structures. The files show that providers don’t always know their customers, despite their legal obligation to take care not to do business with people who engage in questionable dealings.”
  • “ICIJ analyzed 109 so-called suspicious activity reports to financial authorities filed by the Panamanian law firm Alemán, Cordero, Galindo & Lee, or Alcogal, and learned that 87 of the anti-money-laundering forms were written only after authorities or journalists had publicly identified the firm’s clients as involved in alleged wrongdoing.”
  • “ICIJ also read through several thousand publicly available employees’ profiles and found out that more than 220 lawyers associated with the giant law firm Baker McKenzie in 35 countries had previously held government posts in agencies including justice departments, tax offices, the EU Commission, and offices of heads of state.”

“BILLIONS HIDDEN BEYOND REACH” —

  • “Executives at a politically connected Panama City law firm, for example, mentioned in a 2016 email ‘numerous requests from clients to confirm the security of our information systems’ after the Panama Papers stories, according to documents. The executives scrapped plans to convert paper records to digital storage, hoping to reassure wary clients.”
  • “Executives at a politically connected Panama City law firm, for example, mentioned in a 2016 email ‘numerous requests from clients to confirm the security of our information systems’ after the Panama Papers stories, according to documents. The executives scrapped plans to convert paper records to digital storage, hoping to reassure wary clients.”
  • “The trove, dubbed the Pandora Papers, exceeds the dimensions of the leak that was at the center of the Panama Papers investigation five years ago. That data was drawn from a single law firm, but the new material encompasses records from 14 separate financial-services entities operating in countries and territories including Switzerland, Singapore, Cyprus, Belize and the British Virgin Islands.”
  • “The revelations include more than $100 million spent by King Abdullah II of Jordan on luxury homes in Malibu, Calif., and other locations…. The disclosures come as Abdullah is facing political turmoil, including an alleged coup plot this year, in a kingdom that depends on billions of dollars in aid from the United States and other countries. DLA Piper, a law firm representing Abdullah, said that ‘any implication that there is something improper about [his] ownership of property through companies in offshore jurisdictions is categorically denied.”