Panama Papers firm threatens to sue ICIJ unless it stops publishing data

 JournalismPakistan.com |  Published: 11 May 2016

The Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca announces plans to sue the ICIJ over the publication of information from leaked documents. They argue the data was obtained illegally and is inaccurate.

Summary

The Panamanian law firm at the centre of the huge trove of leaked documents detailing offshore financial dealings says it will take legal action against an international consortium of journalists. The Mossack Fonseca firm said in statement Tuesday that it had asked the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) to stop publishing information from the documents that it has said were obtained through a computer hack. On Monday, the consortium published information about some 200,000 offshore entities in a searchable database. It said that did not imply all those mentioned violated the law. The firm says that in addition to being obtained illegally, the data is full of errors. The consortium has published a number of stories detailing how world leaders, celebrities and businesses use such entities to hide money. The Panama Papers contain some 11.5 million emails, internal records and documents from Mossack Fonseca. The archive was leaked to the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, then shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. - AP

KEY POINTS:

• Mossack Fonseca plans to take legal action against ICIJ.
• Claims data from Panama Papers was obtained through hacking.
• ICIJ published a searchable database of 200,000 offshore entities.
• Mossack Fonseca disputes the legality and accuracy of the leaked documents.
• The Panama Papers include 11.5 million documents detailing offshore dealings.