Ride the Lightning

Second Round of Panama Papers Released: Americans Identified (updated)

May 10, 2016

Yesterday, at 2 p.m. Eastern, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released the second batch of the "Panama Papers" in a live and searchable (but stripped-down) database of more than 200,000 entities. Many of the activities unveiled in the papers are not illegal but many are, including laundering money, hiding evidence of crimes, avoiding sanctions and tax evasion.

The database includes information on Americans tied to financial misconduct. NBC News, an ICIJ partner, has a site dedicated to its analysis of the developing stories related to the Panama Papers.

You can search the database yourself here. Time was limited to compose this post, but if you limit your search to the United States and you search on "Esq" and "law firm," you will find some of the lawyers and firms referenced in the database. I am sure someone is walking down a long list of law firms, but time did not permit that. Certainly, many Americans and American companies are included. A common search across all countries is "legal."

"ICIJ is publishing the information in the public interest," said Marina Walker Guevara, the ICIJ's deputy director. The data comes from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca and covers information about nearly 214,000 offshore entities, companies, trusts, foundations and funds incorporated in 21 tax havens, from Hong Kong to Nevada in the United States. Walker said the data made available Monday represents a fraction of the Panama Papers, a trove of more than 11.5 million leaked files from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, which she called "one of the world's top creators of hard-to-trace companies, trusts and foundations."

The database is the largest release of information about secret offshore companies and the people behind them, called "beneficial owners," whose identities are hidden from public scrutiny.

ICIJ is not disclosing raw documents or personal information such as bank accounts, e-mail exchanges and financial transactions, Walker said. As she added, the database does contain "a great deal of information about company owners, proxies and intermediaries in secrecy jurisdictions," including, when available, "the names of the real owners of those opaque structures."

The anonymous leaker of the so-called Panama Papers issued a manifesto on May 6th, saying the firestorm of controversy resulting from the leak of 11.5 million documents about offshore tax havens hasn't triggered enough substantive action, or condemnation.

"I decided to expose Mossack Fonseca because I thought its founders, employees and clients should have to answer for their roles in these crimes, only some of which have come to light thus far," wrote the leaker in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, the German newspaper that received the documents last year and then shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The leaker also said, "For the record, I do not work for any government or intelligence agency, directly or as a contractor, and I never have. My viewpoint is entirely my own."

According to another NBC article, the IRS has told Americans to come clean before it reads the Panama Papers, which it will use to bolster current investigations and to initiate new ones. The Guardian had previously reported that President Obama has called for international tax reform – and that the Department of Justice is also examining the Panama Papers for evidence of wrongdoing.

While illegal activities will no doubt be found, much of the problem is that sheltering money from taxes is often legal, as President Obama pointed out.

With a hat tip to The American Lawyer (sub.req.) for its updated story, here is a list published this morning of current and former law firms that appear in the ICIJ database.

Update: The ICIJ noted in a disclaimer that there are "legitimate uses for offshore companies and trusts" and that it does not "intend to suggest or imply that any persons, companies or other entities have broken the law or otherwise acted improperly."

The Am Law 200 & Global 100

Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in New York
Arnold & Porter, via legacy firm Howard Rice Nemerovski Canady Falk & Rabkin in San Francisco
Ashurst, via legacy firm Blake Dawson Waldron in London and Sydney
Baker & McKenzie in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Singapore, Stockholm, Taipei and Zurich
Bryan Cave in New York and St. Louis
Coudert Brothers, now defunct, in Denver, Los Angeles, New York and Singapore
Dentons, via legacy firms Denton Wilde Sapte in Gibraltar and Salans Hertzfeld & Heeilbroun in Paris
DLA Piper in Hong Kong and Singapore
Dorsey & Whitney in Hong Kong
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in Singapore
Greenberg Traurig in Miami and New York
Hogan Lovells, via legacy firm Hogan & Hartson in Moscow
Hughes Hubbard & Reed in Miami
Jones Day in Hong Kong and Tokyo
K&L Gates in Hong Kong
Kaye Scholer in Los Angeles
Katten Muchin Rosenman in Chicago
King & Wood Mallesons, via legacy firms Arculli Fong & Ng in Hong Kong and Mallesons Stephen Jaques in Hong Kong
Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel in New York
Linklaters in Hong Kong
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius in Singapore
Norton Rose Fulbright, via legacy firms Fulbright & Jaworski in Hong Kong and Macleod Dixon in Calgary
Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe in Singapore
Perkins Coie in Taipei
Schiff Hardin in New York
Snell & Wilmer in Costa Mesa, California
Squire Patton Boggs, via legacy firms Deacons Graham & James in Kowloon/Hong Kong and Squire, Sanders & Dempsey in Hong Kong and Los Angeles
Troutman Sanders in Hong Kong
White & Case in Los Angeles and Singapore
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, via legacy firm Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering in Washington, D.C.

This is going to be a "drip, drip, drip" story as journalists seek to connect the dots. There is no doubt that a lot of law firms and other companies are having a miserable day today.

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