Talk:Panama Papers

List of individual v paragraph of prose

The voluminous amount of implicated individuals makes me feel that a list would be more appropriate, and we could briefly describe list subsections in the prose. The BBC refers to "72 heads of state", such a section would be vast in prose form. Fusion has published deep lists of sports figures etc. Gareth E. Kegg (talk) 19:15, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Agreed - that seems to be the best approach. Edwardx (talk) 19:20, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

• What is the precedent for making lists of every name invoked in a leak? Because if this is the world's biggest leak (or possibly it), that's a lot of names, and outside our scope: Wikipedia is not an indiscriminate collection of information. czar 21:26, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

• No one has suggested that any list should contain every name. Could we avoid straw man arguments please? Edwardx (talk) 21:34, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

"Fusion has published deep lists of sports figures etc." would imply listing every name that has a Wikipedia article—otherwise what is your inclusion criteria? That's why this section would be out of scope. czar 21:39, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

WP:INDISCRIMINATE is not applicable here, as this is a list of public figures with Wikipedia articles or people closely connected to them. Gareth E. Kegg (talk) 21:50, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

WP:BLP applies. You can't just add a big list of names of people and say "well, they were "implicated" or "allegations were made against" or similar. I've taken out a list of names sourced to just a general article (which also listed their names). One other ref is timing out, probably because of popularity. At the very, very, least, only add names when there have been specific, credible allegations made about people by reliable sources, with a cite to the specific allegation next to each name. I suspect BLP requries even more than that, but I'll leave that for other people and a longer discussion. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:39, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

• These aren't allegations. They are details of interactions with Mossack Fonseca supported by documents. You've proposed an unreasonably strict interpretation of our BLP guidelines. The ICIJ profiles are so detailed that to include them the page would become unworkable, we can of course include the ICIJ profile information on individual articles and biographies. All of the individuals mentioned are public figures or connected to public figures with articles on Wikipedia, so to mention them in a list in the context of this article is certainly justifiable. Gareth E. Kegg (talk) 21:48, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

You believe it is unworkable to link specific people to specific allegations of wrongdoing by reliable sources before naming and shaming them? I don't see how we can justify that. As far as I understand, being in this data dump, being a client of this firm, is not illegal. Lots of people in the future may be found out to have done something illegal, but we shouldn't cover individual names until that happens. We can afford to go slower than the tabloids. --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:52, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

• @Floquenbeam: According to WP:BLP only those contentious material about living persons that is "unsourced or poorly sourced" should be removed. Here it is sourced by 376 journalists from the leading media outlets of 76 countries. What else do you want??? Bring the names back immediately. - Daniel (talk) 21:49, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

I want reliable sources to say they've actually done something specifically wrong, not that their names showed up in a data dump of clients. It isn't too much to ask that each name be sourced to a specific allegation by a reliable source. Is it? --Floquenbeam (talk) 21:55, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

This was actually present in the original edits but was watered down with the flood. The Fusion and Guardian sources name specific allegations. Do you want the news outlet's name attached to the claims? I don't think it's necessary if the outlet isn't the sole claimant but yeah czar 22:02, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

On that basis, we might as well delete the entire article as all of the RS we have cited have stressed within their own articles that tax avoidance isn't illegal. This article is brilliantly sourced and contains no accusations, it just links individuals with the Mossack Fonseca data. Any further outrage or opinion is in they eye of the beholder. Gareth E. Kegg (talk) 22:03, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

@Gareth E. Kegg, there is no consensus to add a list of names. Please remove your new addition. Feel free to draft it on this talk page or in a private sandbox if you want, but not in the article until there is agreement. czar 22:10, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

• I've asked for more eyes at WP:ANI and WP:BLP/N. I won't unilaterally remove names sourced to specific pages, but I strongly believe they aren't appropriate. Previous versions of this page used the terms "implicated", and "allegations were also made against". It's clear what is going on here. This list is being used to imply wrongdoing, without the hassle of actually having to demonstrate wrongdoing. --Floquenbeam (talk) 22:13, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

The terms "allegations" and "wrongdoing" should never have been used in this article, as tax avoidance is entirely legal, and these names are excellently sourced. This has been stressed by every participating media outlet I have read on this case. I used the term 'implicated' as the heads of state have been implicated in the leaks themselves, not in any suggestions of illegality. A consensus has developed on the article now. Wikipedia couldn't look more irrelevant if we did not cover a story of this magnitude in adequate depth. Providing incredible detail without bias represents the very best of our efforts on breaking news stories, and is what the world has come to expect of us. Thank you for all your efforts so far :) Gareth E. Kegg (talk) 22:31, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Consensus means that editors agree on a talk page, not that editors have given up on reverting each other. How about this for a solution: I've moved the section to List of people named in the Panama Papers as the list has already grown to be undue weight in this article. If editors object, we can merge it back as the tumor it already is. If not, you're free to continue the inevitable BLP discussions there. czar 23:29, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

• Comment combining prose and lists is never going to end well. As this is such a huge news story, I imagine that there will be plenty on information on the papers themselves to write lots of prose. At the same time, the huge amount of people implicated means there will be a huge list. It seems rather obvious that from a manual of style point of view, the list of people should be split off as a separate article. As for whether the list of people is suitable for Wikipedia, I am unsure as of yet. Perhaps a deletion review of the list could be appropriate if we still have doubts in seven days time? Either way, I strongly suggest that such a list goes into more detail than just being named in the list. Jolly Ω Janner 23:33, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Participating media outlets

The section 'Participating media outlets' can be used to insert the links to the news site, next to each publisher. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Igor Dalmy (talk) 21:28, 3 April 2016‎ (UTC)

Extended content
==Participating media outlets== The research into the Panama Papers and the preparation for publication involved 376 journalists from 76 countries, including: 2

@Igor Dalmy, I moved this section from the article per BRD. My edit summary was "out of scope—convert to prose, if necessary; ostensibly the media outlet only matters when we're using their report unless a secondary source makes a point of mentioning this specific subset from the rest." When an edit is disputed, it goes up for discussion on the talk page. We should have consensus here before it is added back. czar 21:45, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Italicization of the title

Czar reasoned that the Panama Papers should not italicized because it is "not a creative work," but neither are the Pentagon Papers. JC · Talk · Contributions 21:43, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

We follow the convention of the reliable, secondary sources. Is The Guardian and the BBC italicizing it? Ostensibly the Pentagon Papers is italicized because it's the title of a report that was prepared as a creative work, though I don't have a horse in that race. More similar to the Panama Papers are the Palestine Papers and Luxembourg Leaks, which are not italicized. But again, we go with what the major sources do. czar 21:51, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Alright, I hear you. JC · Talk · Contributions 21:54, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

America + Israel

Interesting, no American or Israeli „customers“ on the list? And loads of US-prop in the media? Smells like US-propaganda-war. But good to have a list of those news-channels who participate, they sure are part of the US-prop. Also the day later.... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.108.98.124 (talk) 21:41, 3 April 2016‎ (UTC)

Or they use another firm? in other word a different sphere of relationships. Soap55z (talk) 21:59, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Was just about to reply: About 600 Israeli companies and ~850 Israeli shareholders (unsure if some are part of those 600) are on the list, according to Haaretz, one of the participating media outlets. (Link is in Hebrew) They're mostly unknown, but some bigger names appear on there, along with a few deeper links to companies linked to government contracts. ~Smiley 22:03, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Found an English version of the article: http://www.haaretz.com/world-news/1.712497 ~Smiley 22:04, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Is it the kind of 100% "shareholders" of post box or list of who owns shares in public companies? Soap55z (talk) 22:44, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Another observation is that the areas of really high industrial GDP/capita are white on the map of affected countries. Soap55z (talk) 22:47, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

No idea about Israel, but the absence of US stuff has been remarked on. Some people attribute it to FATCA but that is just since 2008, and the stuff in these documents goes back to the 1970s. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 00:07, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

So-called International Consortium of Investigative Journalists is based in Washington, D.C. - Daniel (talk) 03:49, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

The vast majority of SPVs are used for transparent and what most people view as legitimate purposes. The directors (but not shareholders) of such companies are often fund managers (or lawyers at fund management companies). US companies and funds tend to use the SPVs domiciled in the Cayman Islands. Mossack Fonseca doesn't appear to operate there. This would seem a reasonable explanation why their database is light on US names. ^Bongo_matic 04:37, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

It is not light on US names, there are no such names in the list at all. - Daniel (talk) 04:52, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

• We might reasonably infer that Mossack Fonseca made an early strategic decision not to sign up any US clients, to reduce the risk of antagonising the local superpower. Edwardx (talk) 15:20, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

According to data from ICIJ Mossack Fonseca had 617 intermediaries in US (intermediaries, according to ICIJ, are "banks, law firms, company incorporators and other middlemen to set up companies, foundations and trusts for customers"). - Daniel (talk) 15:48, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Canada is also "too hot" then? Iran, Mongolia, Japan, S.Korea etc also stick out. Soap55z (talk) 15:31, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

It might be worth mentioning somewhere why this is so light on US names. I'm sure Wall Street has more tax avoidance than anywhere else in the world. Have you read all the articles about US companies not paying any taxes, or very little taxes? I'm sure they do the same things as everyone else mentioned in the Panama Papers. A lot of the critical comments on social media are accusing the ICIJ of ignoring the US and focusing on countries that aren't in alignment with US foreign policies. Read the comments on the ICIJ video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6XnH_OnpO0 and the comments on Russia Today's response to it.

Not agree. Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, UAE, Qatar and UK are on the list. Not Iran for example.

Infobox improvement

I copied the original infobox template from the Pentagon Papers and thought that if it's good for that article that has been around way longer it should do here too. Obviously one person here disagrees. So does anyone know of appropriate template?

The closest I came was Category:Events infobox templates or perhaps Template:Infobox event. But big leaks seems to have been so rare in the past that no one has bothered to make one specifically for leaks. Soap55z (talk) 21:58, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Extended content
Panama Papers Countries with public officials implicated in the leak Description Release of 11.5 million documents (2.6 TB) Date of documents 1970s–2016 Period of release 2015 – 2016 Key publishers Süddeutsche Zeitung Subject Tax evasion Went public April 3, 2016 16:51 UTC

@Soap55z, the article does not need an infobox, nevertheless a non-standard infobox with parameters invented on the spot. Everything that the infobox needs to communicate can be said in the lede, as is standard for our articles. Per BRD, please form consensus on the talk page before re-adding this new content unilaterally. czar 21:58, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Looks like we both posted at the same time. Pentagon Papers doesn't have an infobox. Not every article needs an infobox. czar 22:06, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

What makes your judgement the better one? One of the things that hit when reading the article was the lack of a date, scope and what it is about. And no one needs Wikipedia either. It's all about at what level of comfort one wants. (btw, seems it was "United States diplomatic cables leak" that was the source) Soap55z (talk) 22:10, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

That's the type of information we cover in the initial (lede) paragraph. Infoboxes should not include stuff that isn't already cited in the article. Feel free to work the details you thought were important into the introduction. czar 22:25, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

I think information such as what it's about, when it happened, and what it affects should be in the first two sentences. One shall not have to read large chunks of text to get an idea if it was worthwhile to read about at all. Have a look at the article on the Brussels incident. A lot of the information is mentioned both in the infobox, article header and in a specific section. Soap55z (talk) 22:35, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

The infobox is not helpful in this article. Better to remove and present the information in the lead. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 14:31, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

i think we need an infobox, i suggest event; see Flint water crisis; Watergate scandal. Duckduckstop (talk) 19:54, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Data processing

The section on data processing in case it gets lost.. Soap55z (talk) 22:28, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Extended content

The leaked document size dwarfs Wikileaks Cablegate (1.7 GB), Offshore Leaks (260 GB), Lux Leaks (4 GB), and Swiss Leaks (3.3 GB). The data primarily comprises e-mails, pdf files, photos, and excerpts of an internal Mossack Fonseca database. It covers a period spanning from the 1970s to the spring of 2016. The Panama Papers leak provide data on some 214,000 companies. There's a folder for each shell firm that contains e-mails, contracts, transcripts, and scanned documents. The leak comprises of 4,804,618 emails, 3,047,306 database format files, 2,154,264 PDFs, 1,117,026 images, 320,166 text files, and 2,242 in other file formats. The data had to be systematically indexed. This was done with a proprietary software called Nuix, which is also used by international investigators. The documents were fed to high-performance computers for optical character recognition processing, making the data machine-readable and searchable. Compiled lists of important persons were then cross matched against the processed documents. The next step in the analysis is to connect persons, roles, flow of money and legality of structures.

Primary sourcing

Can we please use a different source other than International Consortium of Investigative Journalists? We don't even know what level of scrutiny was applied to "out" these people and it's most like a violation of WP:BLP to publish this information. Perhaps some other sources which go into the details of the people listed and their involvement can be used? Jolly Ω Janner 23:22, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

It is evident from their past investigations that they apply very high standards of scrutiny in their work. The ICIJ has been the organisation sharing the information with all other reliable sources, so they have to be the ones we rely on. If you feel it's a violation of BLP, then you might as well exclude every name from the article, a ridiculous notion at this stage. News organisations and the ICIJ aren't primary sources with stories like this. Gareth E. Kegg (talk) 23:46, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

There is some description of the vetting in the falter.at interview linked below. They had their own doubts, and did lots of cross-checks etc. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 23:49, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Likely you have to wait until the various participating newspapers in their respective countries gets to share the source documents to get a second source. The question then is to what to do with the single source published information in the meantime. Another question is then who has access to the source data? Soap55z (talk) 23:49, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Only the involved media organizations have the raw data (that's the primary source) and it's under security and lots of it will be kept private. But I'd say ICIJ and the newspapers are secondary sources that we can use. Plöchinger's twitter feed (twitter.com/ploechinger) has some more info about the data dump. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 23:56, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Bearing in mind the high standards and reputation of the ICIJ, I'd go as far as saying that it is a better secondary source than most of those which get used here regularly. Boscaswell talk 18:21, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

SZ reporters interviewed about receiving leak (german)

Maybe some of this is useful for the article:

https://cms.falter.at/falter/2016/04/03/wir-sind-doch-nicht-der-verlaengerte-arm-der-staatsanwaltschaft/

173.228.123.194 (talk) 23:44, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

There is also a "making of" video on facebook that I haven't looked at.[1] And the reporters have written a book already, linked from interview above and supposedly to be available in a few days. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 23:53, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

Translation progress

Extended content

ISO 639-1 Language Milllion speakers Word count per 2016-04-04 13:00 Starting time UTC UTC diff en English 380 (2006) 4233 2016-04-03 17:59 0 ar Arabic 290 (2010) 1510 2016-04-03 22:12 0 bg Bulgarian 9 (2005-2012) 0 2016-04-04 14:50 0 bs Bosnian 3 (2008) 0 2016-04-04 15:01 +2 ca Catalan 4.1 (2012) 1192 2016-04-03 20:57 +2 de German 90 (2010) 1661 2016-04-03 20:09 +2 et Estonian 1.1 (2012) 493 2016-04-03 21:37 +3 es Spanish 470 (2015) 3518 2016-04-03 19:42 0 fa Persian 45 (2007) 528 2016-04-04 07:10 0 fr French 80 (2015) 2428 2016-04-03 18:22 +2 ko Korean 80 (2008-2012) 483 2016-04-04 05:18 +9 id Indonesian 43 (2010) 1827 2016-04-04 01:05 0 is Icelandic 0.3 (2013) 524 2016-04-03 20:18 0 he Hebrew 4.4 (2012) 639 2016-04-04 11:12 +3 nl Dutch 22 (2012) 1235 2016-04-03 22:50 +2 ja Japanese 125 (2010) 1820 2016-04-04 07:32 0 no Norwegian 5 (2014) 1900 2016-04-03 20:11 +2 pl Polish 40 (2007) 517 2016-04-03 23:21 +2 pt Portuguese 215 (2010) 3000 2016-04-03 21:14 0 ro Romanian 24 (2004-2012) 1266 2016-04-04 10:46 +3 ru Russian 150 (2010) 2161 2016-04-03 19:24 0 fi Finnish 5.4 (2009-2012) 673 2016-04-03 18:53 +3 sv Swedish 9.2 (2012) 603 2016-04-03 22:39 +2 th Thai 20 (2000) 437 2016-04-04 09:58 +7 tr Turkish 75 (2007) 841 2016-04-04 07:40 0 uk Ukrainian 30 (2007) 1724 2016-04-03 23:56 0 ur Urdu 65 (2007) 0 2016-04-04 14:05 0 vi Vietnamese 75 (2007) 3372 2016-04-04 08:43 0 zh Chinese 1200 (1984-2001) 808 2016-04-03 22:46 0 I don't understand the purpose of this section. Why do we need it? 173.228.123.194 (talk) 21:58, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Tax evasion?

This is a very new article, but nothing in the article so far actually documents or even mentions an allegation of "tax evasion." The article contains verbiage such as "The leak exposed assets of political figures and other prominent officials...." That's not tax evasion. Indeed, it's not even illegal for "political figures and other prominent officials" to have "assets" -- even "offshore" assets -- whether "exposed" or "unexposed."

Hopefully, some substance will be added to the article soon. So far, the article seems to be mainly about a "leak" of a large amount of data and the work that is going into analyzing that data. That is not much of a story yet. Famspear (talk) 01:56, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

PS: Under U.S. law, certain persons are required to disclose the existence of certain foreign assets they own, if the value of the assets exceeds a certain amount. However, merely owning those assets or having those assets be located in an "offshore tax haven" is not necessarily against the law. Famspear (talk) 02:13, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I agree. Simply telling that all of them are involved in tax evasion (which previous version of the infobox implied) is wrong. Only a few of them have been accused in press and other sources of tax evasion which does not prove they are guilty, but should be included (if reliably sourced in multiple secondary RS) as claims on other pages per WP:NPOV. My very best wishes (talk) 02:41, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Tax evasion may be a misstatement of what this is about. And US law is almost irrelevant since there are (so far) no US people named. But it looks like plenty of assets are being concealed, including some belonging to places like North Korea. The "how to hide a billion dollars" video currently on theguardian.com suggests that the shell companies can also be used for secretly transferring assets, not just parking them. The involved newspapers are not tabloids (i.e. they're RS for documenting the relevance of stuff they write about), and they're so far stating premises while being cagey about reaching conclusions that are hard to nail down. I think we should report stuff the same way they do. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 03:04, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Which brings us to another point: "Concealing" assets in and of itself is neither morally wrong nor a crime. Further, secretly transferring assets, in and of itself, is neither morally wrong nor a crime. "Hiding" a billion dollars, in and of itself, is neither morally wrong nor a crime. The editor at IP 173.228.194 is correct: the journalists are being "cagey" about stating any conclusions about all this data.

My guess is that some evidence of specific illegal conduct by specific people may eventually be identified. It takes time to go through all the data.

At this point, however, members of the news media (of which I am a former member) need to be careful about what they say and write, and not "get ahead of the story." Famspear (talk) 14:21, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Also, BLP rules prevent use from drawing conclusions at this early story. These government officials may have financial disclosure rules as part of their position but that is an internal matter best left to that countries' ethics board. Geraldshields11 (talk) 14:44, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

@Famspear: "Which brings us to another point: "Concealing" assets in and of itself is neither morally wrong..." ...in your opinion. I am not saying one thing or another. Concealing *financial* assets - why is it done? We are not moral arbiters, but this being Wikipedia, we are compiling an encyclopedia and including within it factual information that is noteworthy. Boscaswell talk 15:17, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

For example, the current Prime Minister of Iceland is on that list. Some years ago after several Icelandic banks collapsed in the 2008 financial crisis, and if I understand it right, the current PM put through a resolution that gave domestic (Icelandic) creditors a better deal than foreign ones, which I guess was a contentious matter. Now it turns out that he was secretly one of those domestic creditors (by some millions of US$) which means he got personal undisclosed benefit from that resolution. It looks like he's about to be sacked through a no-confidence vote as a result.

There's a video on the Guardian where he's ambushed by a Swedish reporter who surprises him with a question about his shell company and he freaks out rather badly on camera. Since the Pirate Party (Iceland) are currently the most popular political party there, we might even see former Wikileaks spokesperson Birgitta Jónsdóttir as the new PM. That will be ... interesting.

If you look at some other cases, there are people and countries who have apparently used these shell companies to get around sanctions or hide criminal proceeds. The SMH article about the .AU tax investigation has examples. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 16:10, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Lo and behold, PBS stole my idea about the ethics board. Geraldshields11 (talk) 16:09, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Dear Boscaswell: Let me clarify something: The fact that concealing assets in and of itself is neither morally nor legally wrong is not merely "my opinion."

There is simply no rule of morality that requires that each of us "not conceal" our assets from one another, in the ordinary denotative sense of "conceal": "to keep from another's knowledge...." Webster's New World Dictionary of the American Language, p. 293, World Publishing Co., Inc. (2nd Coll. Ed. 1978).

And, at least under American law, a given instance of conduct is not illegal unless there is actually a law in place making that conduct illegal. Period.

Example: I have a certain checking account at a certain bank. I am undoubtedly concealing that fact in the ordinary sense that I don't go around voluntarily telling people that I have that account at that bank. There is no "rule" of "morality" that requires that I volunteer that kind of information to other people, and normally there is no reason for me to volunteer that information. Indeed, I'm fairly sure that nobody really cares whether I have a checking account at a particular bank.

That's what I mean by the statement that concealing assets in and of itself is neither morally wrong nor illegal. Some other component needs to be added before I am somehow morally -- or legally -- guilty of something.

Concealing the existence of an offshore bank account, in the absence of a law prohibiting someone from concealing that account under given set of facts or circumstances, is not illegal (circular reasoning, but axiomatic). This is not merely a matter of "my opinion."

And concealing an offshore bank account is immoral only if the individual is breaking some moral duty not to conceal the account (again, circular reasoning -- but still axiomatic).

Duties, whether legal or moral, do not arise "magically" from nowhere. The fact that certain people -- including leaders of countries -- have foreign bank accounts, the existence of which they have concealed from the public (in the sense in which I am using the term) is not in and of itself particularly noteworthy in the absence of some sort of claim that the conduct is either illegal or immoral.

Having said that, I'm somewhat confident that in all the data that was leaked, some journalist somewhere will eventually find some conduct by someone that is alleged to be illegal or immoral. What I am saying is that as Wikipedia editors, we need to keep our heads straight on this stuff. Famspear (talk) 18:29, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

For example, North Korea using one of those companies to sell arms and expand its nuke program sounds questionable.[2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.228.123.194 (talk • contribs)

Please avoid overgeneralizations

This remark:

The firm works with the world’s biggest financial institutions, such as Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Société Générale, Credit Suisse, UBS and Commerzbank, helping their clients to conceal their fortunes from tax collectors and investigators.

is not supported by this statement:

in some cases to help the banks’ clients set up complex structures that make it hard for tax collectors and investigators to track the flow of money from one place to another.

Likewise, this remark:

To conceal the assets of its clients, Mossack Fonseca has registered more than 300,000 so called "shell companies"

is not supported by

It has acted for more than 300,000 companies.

Specifically, there is no suggestion that that number of companies is for the stated purpose. Let's be careful out there! ^Bongo_matic 02:31, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

• Thank you. I will avoid generalizations, and will use accuarate citations instead. - Daniel (talk) 02:40, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Corporate service provider

Mossack Fonseca is surely a law firm, but as shown on its web page and as adverted to in other source material, it is also a corporate service provider. In the current context, its work as a corporate service provider is relevant. The disclosures made so far regard corporate administration, not legal advice, contracts, etc. Hence my view is that the epithet generally (not exclusively) used should be "corporate services provider".

Any competing views? ^Bongo_matic 02:48, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

It's reasonable to say that in the article but don't overweight it. Go mostly by the reporting. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 03:05, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

AP/NYT

This is a useful summary.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2016/04/03/world/europe/ap-panama-papers.html

173.228.123.194 (talk) 03:09, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Scope / Nature of disclosures

What is the scope of people named? I added a descriptor of "shareholders and directors" based on observation, but are there other roles held by people (who are neither shareholders nor directors) in the database? Didn't see any overall narrative about what the content is on the website. Have the people named have had any roles other than shareholder and director with respect to the offshore companies (e.g., lender, borrower, secretary, lienee, lienor, etc.). My question is not about who should be included in any lists due to role—just what roles are in the database (both in its entirety and the information released so far). I have not pored through it in detail, but to date have not seen any roles mentioned other than shareholder and director. Are any other roles included in the database? ^Bongo_matic 04:40, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

We don't know. Only 149 documents have been released, out of 11 million in the collection. What the document says about someone (shareholder, director, etc.) isn't something we can use directly anyway, since it's a primary source; we should go by descriptions that appear in reporting. A lot more stuff will come in the next few weeks, according to the highly reliable (cough) internet. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 05:05, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

No official investigations yet?

The likes of FBI have made no arrests yet or at least open investigations? Nergaal (talk) 05:19, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

It's likely too early for that. They would have to start their own investigation, which takes time. Plus as far as I know, no one on the list is under the FBI's jurisdiction.  DiscantX 05:24, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Yes, Australia announced one.[3] Probably more are coming. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 06:20, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

German tax authorities got similar material (but less of it, and they paid their informant) some time ago and have been doing raids: [4] 173.228.123.194 (talk) 10:22, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Sweden[5] 173.228.123.194 (talk) 17:43, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Original documents

Some original documents from Panama Papers have been uploaded on DocumentCloud. - Daniel (talk) 08:50, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Apart from those crumbs, does anyone have information about the original documents? Who has access to them? Is there, or will there ever be, a way for ordinary people to search through the data to see which local mafiosos/casino licensees are on the list, or even to see the relevant documents or extracted text? Wnt (talk) 11:19, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Like the Snowden dump most of it will be kept private. Wikileaks trolled polled its readership on Twitter yesterday to ask if they should release it all, but they aren't likely to actually have it. reddit.com/r/panamapapers has more discussions and I spent a while reading it last night. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 16:17, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

"Heads of state"

The article consistently refers to "heads of state" but the PM of Iceland is not Iceland's head of state. The Guardian uses "national leader"[6] which seems to be the least awkward replacement. Orange Suede Sofa (talk) 14:17, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

He is head of government. Geraldshields11 (talk) 14:42, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Semi-Protected

As noted on the firm's talk, in light of the fiasco which is only bound to get worse, perhaps it'd be best to beat the trolls to the punch and semi-protect?

Also, what's up with ClueBot and the PanamaPapers account going to war with each other? Axslayer33 (talk) 20:27, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

I have reviewed its history and strongly support semi-protection. It is a magnet for trolls, although it is very useful, alongside the separate one, with these persons' list. Zezen (talk) 21:11, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

We don't pre-emptively semi-protect and as of this morning I didn't see any serious trolling on the article. Don't know about now since I haven't looked. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 21:57, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

OK, I checked, there was some edit warring from a new account that was trying to blank the article and got blocked. Nothing else really significant. Oppose semi-protection unless actual problems needing it arise. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 22:01, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Iceland

22000 people protested outside the Icelandic parliament to sack the Prime Minister--that's around 6% of Iceland's total population and 10% of its voters, supposedly its biggest demonstration ever. Iceland parliament session ended today without a vote of no confidence that some people expected, and if I understand it, tomorrow's session is suspended. This is from twitter.com/rvkgrapevine (Icelandic newspaper twitter) but we should add something about it to the article with better sourcing. I think some of it is in print by now. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 22:12, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Article explaining PM situation better:[7] 173.228.123.194 (talk) 23:12, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

German speakers?

Are any German speakers here? There are some good German press articles that we should try to use (I linked a few above) so language help would be appreciated. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 22:54, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Is Panama Papers available to public?

Where I can download leaked papers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.154.68.99 (talk • contribs) 23:01, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

It is not available to the public. This way, journalists can pick and choose whose names get dragged thru the mud. XavierItzm (talk) 23:02, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

alleged whitewash attempt

Per Reddit[8] someone claims to have been offered $1000 by Mossack Fonseca to get certain info out of this article (or maybe it's the Mossack Fonseca article). Seems dubious either way. 173.228.123.194 (talk) 23:16, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

Wording of coverage of Mosscak response to Miami Herald

The company, and its employees, are innocent of wrongdoing until found otherwise. Hence, when the company issues a 2900-word statement, we should report on it, and not simply report the summary of The Miami Herald, and that newspaper's conclusion regarding it. In doing so, we are taking a side in the adversarial relationship between an investigative journalism team and their subject. We are to be encyclopedic, and not take a side. Le Prof Leprof 7272 (talk) 00:01, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

The summary is currently lifted directly from the website, which is plagiarism. It should be paraphrased if it's even necessary to include. czar 00:04, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

I had previously provided a summary of the substantive content of the Mossack response. It was removed and replaced with the current content which is, in my view, entirely unenlightening. I will reinstate my original summary of the substantive content of the Mosscak response, but welcome people's views on what should be included here. ^Bongo_matic 02:58, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Note I left in the Editor's comment that the response didn't address the specifics of any of the claimed due diligence failures. ^Bongo_matic 03:03, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Request for Comment

Hello, take a look at the history and see the edit war, almost, between me and another person. I woudl like opinions on what went down and whether it was appropriate. Winterysteppe (talk) 02:59, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

• User:Winterysteppe have reverted my edits several times, either without any explanations (1, 2) or accusing me in "Nationalist POV" (3) or "Nationalist soapboxin" (4, 5). I kept pointing out to him in the explanations of my edits, that this article is about Panama Papers, and Putin's name was not even mentioned in the Panama Papers. I never removed all the information about Putin from this article, but my point is: one sentence about Putin in this article is enough, there is no need to dump this article with all the smear ungrounded accusations which was thrown on him, despite his name not even been mentioned anywhere in the Panama Papers. - Daniel (talk) 03:30, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Potorochin, im leaving the conversation and the article. Im not gonna bother with this article anymore. Winterysteppe (talk) 03:35, 5 April 2016 (UTC)