Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics

Living Edition
| Editors: Deborah C Poff, Alex C. Michalos

Panama Papers

  • Alex C. MichalosEmail author
Living reference work entry
First Online:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_276-1
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Synonyms

Financial services intermediaries; Luxembourg tax files; Paradise papers; Shell company documents; Tax haven documents; Tax haven intermediaries; Tax havens

Definition

The Panama Papers is the largest set of tax haven documents released so far, focused primarily on one company but revealing the worldwide use of financial intermediaries to help wealthy individuals and corporations avoid and evade taxes, rules, regulations, laws, and obligations at the expense of other citizens, competitors, and governments.

Description

Sometime in 2015, Bastian Obermayer, a journalist with the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, was contacted by someone calling himself or herself “John Doe.” Doe was apparently a whistleblower offering Obermayer “secret data” apparently stolen from a firm incorporated in Panama by the name of Mossack Fonseca, Mossfon for short. In a statement written for Obermayer and Obermaier ( 2016, pp. 340–344), Doe wrote,

For the record, I do not work for any government or...

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References

  1. Alstadsæter A, Johannesen N, Zucman G (2017) Who owns the wealth in tax havens? Macro evidence and implications for global inequality. Working paper 23805. National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge. http://www.nber.org/papers/w23805CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  2. Dalby D, Wilson-Chapman A (2019) Three years on the Panama Papers impact. Journalists Blog, April 3, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Washington, DCGoogle Scholar
  3. Fitzgibbon W (2018) Panama Papers law firm Mossack Fonseca closes its doors. Journalists Blog, March 14, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Washington, DCGoogle Scholar
  4. Fitzgibbon W, Alecci S, Chavkin S, Wilson-Chapman A, Boland-Rudder H (2018) Tax wars, follow-up investigations and who was actually in the Paradise Papers. Journalists Blog, November 5, International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Washington, DCGoogle Scholar
  5. Obermayer B, Obermaier F (2016) The Panama Papers: breaking the story of how the rich & powerful hide their money. Oneworld Publications, LondonGoogle Scholar

Copyright information

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.University of Northern British ColumbiaPrince GeorgeCanada

Section editors and affiliations

  • Alex C. Michalos
    • 1
  1. 1.University of Northern British ColumbiaPrince GeorgeCanada