‘Panama Papers’ Firm Fingers Third Parties

Partners at the Panama law firm that formed some 240,000 shell companies to protect the fortunes of the wealthy and powerful feel they should not be charged with any wrongdoing. “At this point in time I would say there shouldn’t be repercussions,” Jürgen Mossack, one of the founders of Mossack Fonseca, told the Wall Street Journal. The firm’s business practices were revealed in a massive cyber hack, distributed to journalists around the world and released last week. Already Iceland’s government has seen a shakeup, and the other impacts are ongoing. Mossack said he is confident that investigations will find no wrong-doing on the firm’s part, and said the firm’s main lesson from the massive data breach is Mossack Fonseca should have done more themselves, without relying on third party banks. “Our brand needs to be protected,” he said. “We feel the best way to protect the brand is by doing things ourselves and not rely on others.” Co-founder Ramón Fonseca told the New York Times: “At the end of this storm the sky will be blue again and people will find that the only crime is the hacking.”