Tony Merchant, one of Canada’s top class-action lawyers, faces questions from that country’s authorities about a Cook Islands trust that, the ICIJ found, he’d stocked with more than $1 million in 1998. In a filing to Canadian tax authorities, Merchant checked “no” when asked if he had foreign assets of more than $100,000 in 1999, the report found. His wife is Canadian Senator Pana Merchant.
Philippine government officials said that they will look into a media organization’s disclosure that the eldest daughter of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos was a beneficiary of a secret offshore trust in the British Virgin Islands.
In India, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said an inquiry had been started by the authorities against individuals whose names figured in the global media report. “Yes. We have taken note of the names and inquiries have been put in motion in respect of the names that have been exposed,” he told a press conference.
Greek members of parliament asked the government’s deputy finance minister what he planned to do about the 103 offshore companies that ICIJ found hadn’t been registered with Greece’s tax authorities.
The deputy speaker of the Mongolian parliament is considering resigning after acknowledging his involvement in offshore business and saying it was a mistake.
And so on. Not a bad start.
And the series has two more weeks to go.
Dean, Ryle's post was pretty clear that "In the meantime [they] will continue to release documents linked throughout the stories, as we have been doing since the first report."
They have done the work and are releasing the results at their own pace. I think that's fair after what happened with the Guardian/NYT and the State Department cables.
The ICIJ is helping usher in a new form of journalism and, jsut maybe, accountability. good on them for doing so methodically.
#1 Posted by Luke Heemsbergen, CJR on Mon 8 Apr 2013 at 07:49 PM
If you believe anything they say. They're not sharing the docs, so frankly, I don't.
Also, why is it good to mess up people's lives? People earn money and don't want it stolen. Evidently you want it taken from them. Envy much?
#2 Posted by Aubrey Kohn, CJR on Mon 8 Apr 2013 at 08:51 PM
Luke,
Thanks. That's a good point. I meant that ICIJ is right not to hand over the data directly to authorities and instead is just publishing what it thinks appropriate on its own schedule.
#3 Posted by Dean Starkman, CJR on Mon 8 Apr 2013 at 09:34 PM
The unfortunate repercussion of not wanting to release this data to foreign governments is that it's also unavailable to other data-driven journalists and news sites that could spot additional stories. As one of those, we'd love to see an approach more like Wikileaks.
#4 Posted by Laurie Bennett, CJR on Tue 9 Apr 2013 at 08:19 AM
ICIJ has no reason to hand over their information to the "authorities." It would get buried. It would help many people who have off-shore accounts scramble to relocate their money. I would like to add my own investigation to this story. For the past year I have contacted everyone in the media, investigative journalists and professors. My huband Alan and I have documented the code located in the 1 minute boxes of the Dow Index. We have 80 chapters and have completely broken down the code. It is being broadcast to we don't know who but they know what the market is going to do 3-5 days ahead. Every little up and down everyday. A few journalists and a couple of film producers know what we have. No one wants to touch this story. Our material has been vetted. Dean, hopefully you will contact us and look at what we have. I always hear how everyone gets so many stories from people. No one ever gets a message from someone saying they found the code that controls the stock market. The code is also now in Apple as of June 2012. Last week Alan did a video of Netflix. The code is in it too. This is the biggest financial crime in U.S. history. Take a look at www.TheDowcode.com. I just talked to the top people at ICIJ and they told me to send over my material. We have many more examples on our website but have only 3 or 4 pages up. The others are locked down. This information was sent to the SEC 2010. Thank you, Patty Goldman www.TheDowcode.com
#5 Posted by Patty Goldman, CJR on Tue 9 Apr 2013 at 12:46 PM