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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Haroon Siddique and Matthew Weaver (earlier)

Nine countries launch investigations into Pandora papers revelations; Kremlin dismisses claims – as it happened

The Pandora papers reveal the inner workings of what is a shadow financial world, providing a rare window into the hidden operations of a global offshore economy.
The Pandora papers reveal the inner workings of what is a shadow financial world, providing a rare window into the hidden operations of a global offshore economy. Illustration: Guardian Design

I’m signing off now but you can read the latest summary here and our latest news story details how the Pandora papers revelations have overshadowed the start of the Conservative party conference in Manchester, England.

The prime minister and his ministers were forced to answer a string of questions about separate donations given by two businessmen – Mohamed Amersi and Viktor Fedotov – following revelations in the Pandora papers unearthed by the Guardian and BBC Panorama.

Anneliese Dodds, the chair of the Labour party, and Lisa Nandy, the shadow foreign secretary, were among those to challenge the Tories over the sources of their funding, with Dodds saying: “There can’t be one rule for senior Conservatives and their chums and another rule for everyone else.”

Since Tax Justice UK tweeted this 30 minutes ago, signatures have soared further, such that it has now reached more than 17,500 of its 20,000 target in a day.

Writing for Comment is Free, Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland: Why Thieves and Crooks Now Rule the World and How to Take It Back, says the UK government can take unilateral action to clamp down on shell companies if it is so inclined.

Why does nothing get done? The reason is that kleptocrats, tax avoiders and other criminals are not the main users of shell companies. The world’s richest corporations, investment funds and individuals also like to use cheap, efficient and opaque corporate structures to move their wealth seamlessly around the globe; and any attempts to rein in the fraudulent use of shell companies will inevitably cost them money ...

Politicians are perhaps counting on the fact that voters are no longer shocked by these kind of allegations (a friend texted after the Pandora papers stories dropped on Sunday to ask, “Should I care this time?”), and are counting on the complexity of the material to baffle us into silence.

As it stands, we have a choice. We can surrender to that bafflement and do nothing but await the next giant data leak, while trust in our democracy corrodes further. Or we can take the one simple step that would solve this problem once and for all: abolish anonymous companies.

The government does not need to wait for international agreement, it can simply pass legislation that the true owners of companies operating in the UK must declare themselves. This wouldn’t solve all the problems we face. It wouldn’t even solve all the problems highlighted by the Pandora papers. But it would be a very good start.

My colleague Luke Harding, who co-authored the story on the Chernukhins (see last update) has tweeted some thoughts/background.

Top female Tory donor’s vast offshore empire with husband

The Pandora Papers have shone the light on another Tory donor, this time Lubov Chernukhin, one of the biggest female donors in recent British political history.

Chernukhin, a former banker married to the former Russian oligarch Vladimir Chernukhin, reportedly donates enough to the Tories to qualify for membership of a small group of ultra-rich donors who meet monthly with Johnson and his chancellor, Rishi Sunak. What this exclusive club discusses is not made public, write Harry Davies and Luke Harding.

The Pandora papers shed a revealing light on the Chernukhins. Leaked files reveal their extraordinary reliance on the hidden offshore world, and thereby offer a clue as to their interests. The couple go to remarkable lengths to keep their wealth and financial arrangements secret, the leak suggests, instructing lawyers over a tax authority dispute that spanned France, Switzerland and the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

The papers also suggest Lubov Chernukhin’s money flows, at least in part, from her husband’s multifarious corporate structures. That raises the question over the extent to which it is Vladimir, not Lubov, who may be the ultimate source of some of the cash flowing into the Conservative party ...

In 2015, Johnson boldly stated that checks by the party had assured him Vladimir Chernukhin was not a Vladimir Putin “crony”. All checks had been carried out, he said. The leak nonetheless suggests that Chernukhin may have in recent years remained on good terms with Kremlin-connected figures in Moscow: among them the wife of a government minister, with whom he owned a factory. At least until recently, Vladimir Chernukhin appears to have retained assets in Russia, some of them dating back to when he was a deputy finance minister under Putin and a powerful state banker.

In their response to the Guardian, the Chernukhins’ lawyers said Vladimir had not accumulated any of his wealth in a corrupt manner

South Dakota’s role as $367bn tax haven

South Dakota is sheltering billions of dollars in wealth, some linked to individuals and companies accused of financial crimes or serious wrongdoing, according to documents in the Pandora papers.

The files suggest the US midwestern state now rivals Switzerland, Panama, the Cayman Islands and other famous tax havens as a premier venue for the international rich seeking to protect their assets from local taxes or the authorities, David Pegg and Dominic Rushe write.

Wealthy foreign individuals and their families are moving millions of dollars to South Dakota trust funds, which enjoy some of the world’s most powerful legal protections from taxes, creditors and prying eyes.

Read the full story by clicking below.

Hello, this is Haroon Siddique, I have taken over the blog from my colleague Matthew Weaver.

Here is a useful summary of what the Pandora papers are and the key revelations:

Summary

Here’s a roundup of the key reaction so far:

  • Government authorities in at least nine countries have announced investigations into the financial activities of some of their most high-profile citizens and institutions in response to the Pandora Papers. Officials in India, Pakistan, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Australia, Panama, and the Czech Republic promised inquiries.
  • Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, has praised the leak even though it exposes the offshore fortune of his family. He promised a full response only when he returns from a trip to the Americas.
  • Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov dismissed the Pandora papers as “unsubstantiated claims” and said that no hidden wealth was found in the Russian president’s inner circle. Putin does not appear in the files by name, but numerous close associates do, including his best friend from childhood – the late Petr Kolbin – whom critics have called a “wallet” for Putin’s own wealth, and a woman with whom the Russian leader was allegedly once romantically involved.
  • Edward Snowden, the whistleblower behind the biggest intelligence leak in history, has paid tribute to whoever leaked the Pandora papers. “Hats off to the source,” he said.
  • Boris Johnson has insisted that all donations to the Conservative party are vetted in accordance with rules. The leak revealed that Mohammed Amersi, a donor to his leadership campaign was involved in one of Europe’s biggest corruption scandals. Labour called on the Conservatives to return Amersi’s donations.
  • Rishi Sunak says it not a source of shame that London has a reputation as the tax avoidance capital of the world. He promised that the UK tax authorities would review what can be learned from the leak.
  • Andrej Babiš, the Czech prime minister, claimed the disclosure that he used a convoluted offshore structure to buy a mansion £13m in the south of France as deliberate attempt to damage his chances in this week’s general election. He said: “I don’t own any offshore, I don’t own any real estate in France, and all the money I lent then I got back, so let the police investigate it.”
  • Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, promised that his government will investigate all those mentioned in the leak. Moonis Elahi, a prominent minister in Khan’s government, contacted an offshore provider in Singapore about investing $33.7m, the leak reveals.
  • Jordan’s King Abdullah II claimed the leak was defamatory after it revealed he disguised his ownership of properties via a series of offshore firms. In a statement he said reports about leak “included inaccuracies and distorted and exaggerated the facts”.
  • The Tony Blair Institute has accused the Guardian of deliberately misrepresenting the purchase of Cherie Blair’s office premises. It says the Blairs have always paid their taxes in full and have never used offshore avoidance schemes of any kind.

More reaction from Labour MPs:

India’s finance ministry has also promised an investigation into what the leak reveals. In a statement, it said:

The Government has taken note of these developments. The relevant investigative agencies would undertake investigation in these cases and appropriate action would be taken in such cases as per law. With a view to ensure effective investigation in these cases, the Government will also proactively engage with foreign jurisdictions for obtaining information in respect of relevant taxpayers/entities. The Government of India is also part of an Inter-Governmental Group that ensures collaboration and experience sharing to effectively address tax risks associated with such leaks.

It may be noted that following earlier similar such leaks in the form of ICIJ, HSBC, Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, the Government has already enacted the Black Money (Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets) and Imposition of Tax Act, 2015 with an aim to curb black money, or undisclosed foreign assets and income by imposing suitable tax and penalty on such income. Undisclosed credits of Rs. 20,352 crore approximately (status as on 15.09.2021) have been detected in the investigations carried out in the Panama and Paradise Papers.

Names of only a few Indians (legal entities as well as individuals) have appeared so far in the media. Even the ICIJ website (www.icij.org) has not yet released the names and other particulars of all the entities. The website of ICIJ suggests that information will be released in phases and structured data connected to the Pandora Papers investigation will be released only in the days to come on its Offshore Leaks Database.

Further, the Government has directed today that, investigations in cases of Pandora Papers leaks appearing in the media under the name ‘PANDORA PAPERS’ will be monitored through the Multi Agency Group, headed by the Chairman, CBDT, having representatives from CBDT, ED, RBI & FIU.

Updated

Tory peer did not declare secret offshore investments, leak suggests

The Conservative peer Lord Deighton, the government’s personal protective equipment tsar at the height of the pandemic, did not declare secret offshore investments that appear in the Pandora papers leak.

A former commercial secretary to the Treasury and the chief executive of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Deighton had declared his investments were all in a blind trust.

However, the offshore leak reveals how Deighton and his wife, Alison, invested in a series of undeclared startup companies via British Virgin Islands-based funds managed by the venture capital group Dawn Capital.

The couple’s shareholdings included one stake acquired directly by Deighton, and four by his wife, in five startup companies between 2011 and 2013. One investment the Deightons had previously kept hidden from the public was Lady Deighton’s holding in the controversial former payday loan company Wonga.

Read the full story here:

The SNP’s finance spokeswoman, Alison Thewliss MP, said the leak is an opportunity for radical reform.

The Tories are sinking in a sea of sleaze and corruption, with the Pandora papers merely the latest in a seemingly never-ending series of embarrassing revelations for the Conservatives.

But it provides the UK government with an opportunity for radical action – I am urging them to take it. Otherwise, they will continue to be responsible for perpetuating corruption and potential tax criminality.

Rishi Sunak must ensure that rigorous regulation is brought forward to create a tax-system that works for everyone, including cracking down on the abuse of Scottish Limited Partnerships and properly resourcing Companies House to carry out appropriate enforcement – something that the SNP has been calling for for years.

It is time the Tories turned hollow rhetoric into action and started holding to account those who continue to exploit offshore tax havens.

I won’t hold my breath however, given we have already endured years of cronyism where – it seems – a free pass is given to anyone willing to donate to the Tory party.

Updated

Babiš: ‘I don’t own any real estate in France’

Czech Prime Minister and leader of the ANO movement, Andrej Babiš at television debate for the parliamentary elections
Czech Prime Minister and leader of the ANO movement, Andrej Babiš at television debate for the parliamentary elections Photograph: Martin Divíšek/EPA

Andrej Babiš, the beleaguered Czech prime minister, has cast the disclosure that he used a convoluted offshore structure to buy a mansion £13m in the south of France as a deliberate attempt to damage his chances in a general election due this week.

The former tycoon struck a defiant yet defensive pose on Monday when appearing on Czech Television, to address the revelations in the Pandora Papers.

Four days before voters go to the polls in an election to be held on Friday and Saturday, Babiš depicted an expose scrutinising the financial arrangements of a wide range of international public figures in political and personal terms applying predominantly to himself, suggesting that its publication had been specifically timed to damage his re-election prospects.

He said:

In 2017, I was accused of not having enough money for the bonds. Of course, the police investigated it, of course nothing turned up, so it is timed before the elections to influence the public again and to damage me – a 12-year-old thing. I don’t own any offshore, I don’t own any real estate in France, and all the money I lent then I got back, so let the police investigate it.

Surveys show Babiš’ ANO (Action for Dissatisfied Citizens) party, the biggest grouping in a minority governing coalition, holding a narrow lead over opposition factions in the run-up to the poll. Analysts have doubted whether the revelations will affect the electoral outcome but the fall-out could complicate the prime minister’s prospects of forming a new coalition in any post-election negotiations with other parties.

Babiš admitted that the arrangement for buying the French property were inappropriate for a politician but pointed out that it took place before his formal launch of ANO in 2012, an initiative he marketed at the time as a crusade to stamp out corruption in Czech politics.

“Of course a politician cannot afford to do that, but I did the transaction twelve years ago,” he said.

And he denied suggestions that the arrangement was a money laundering scheme and said he had been advised by an estate agent to use offshore structures, according to the Czech news server, Seznam Zpravy. Babiš said:

They say it is suspected money laundering. I sent the money from a Czech bank as a loan, the money was taxed, I can show you that, and the money was returned before I went into politics.

Czech police’s organised crime unit is to investigate the disclosures relating to Babiš as well as those linked to around another 300 Czechs named in the papers, a spokesman said.

Updated

Kenyatta: ‘I will respond comprehensively’

Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta attends the Generation Equality Forum
Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta attends the Generation Equality Forum Photograph: Ludovic Marin/AFP/Getty Images

Kenya’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, is coming under pressure to explain why he and his close relatives amassed more than $30m of offshore wealth, including property in London.

Kenyatta and six members of his family have been linked to 13 offshore companies, the BBC reports.

He has previously portrayed himself as an enemy of corruption. In 2018 he said: “Every public servant’s assets must be declared publicly so that people can question and ask: what is legitimate?”

In an initial response to the leak he said the documents will “lift the veil of secrecy” but he said he will offer a full response only when he returns from a trip to the Americas.

In a statement his office said:

His Excellency President Uhuru Kenyatta’s attention has been drawn to the ongoing media coverage of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalism (ICIJ) Pandora Papers leaks and would like to make the following intervening response:

My attention has been drawn to comments surrounding the Pandora Papers. Whilst I will respond comprehensively on my return from my State Visit to the Americas, let me say this:

That these reports will go a long way in enhancing the financial transparency and openness that we require in Kenya and around the globe. The movement of illicit funds, proceeds of crime and corruption thrive in an environment of secrecy and darkness.

The Pandora papers and subsequent follow up audits will lift that veil of secrecy and darkness for those who can not explain their assets or wealth. Thank you.

Kenyatta’s political opponents are unlikely to be satisfied:

Updated

At least eight countries announce investigations

Government authorities in at least eight countries have announced investigations into the financial activities of some of their most high-profile citizens and institutions as the world begins to react to the Pandora Papers, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reports.

Officials in Pakistan, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Australia and Panama quickly promised inquiries while global watchdog groups demanded action in the wake of stories revealing how billionaires, politicians and criminals exploit a shadow financial system that covers up tax dodging and money laundering.

Authorities in the Czech Republic tweeted on Monday that they will investigate those named in the Pandora papers, including the prime minister, Andrej Babiš , who is in the midst of a re-election campaign.

Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, vowed to investigate all citizens named in the investigation and to “take appropriate action” if wrongdoing is found.

Updated

The sheer size of the leak is hard to fathom: 11.9m files making up 2.94 terabytes of data, making it the largest such project handled by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, with whom the Guardian partnered, by volume.

If you were to download the combined Wolf Hall trilogy by Hilary Mantel you would use up 6.8MB on your Kindle: 2.94TB is more than 400,000 times that. It is 220,000 times the storage required for Shakespeare’s complete works and 990,000 times bigger than the storage capacity required for the Bible.

Read more here:

This is a story about how the British state drives a global system in which the richest extract wealth from the rest, writes Adam Ramsay editor of Open Democracy:

Although no one knows for sure how much money is hidden in tax havens, of which the British territories make up a significant chunk, the figures involved are so vast that academics at the Transnational Institute in the Netherlands have described them as “the backbone of global capitalism”.

Seen this way, the constitutional flexibility of the British state isn’t just some post-medieval hangover. It’s a hyper-modern tool in an era of global surveillance capitalism, where the rich can flit around offshore while the rest are forever trapped by borders.

Through its empire, the British state played a key role in inventing modern capitalism. Now, the UK is helping reinvent capitalism once more, by extending the protection of a constitution designed by the powerful, for the powerful, to the billionaires, oligarchs and criminals of the world.

Political rivals of the Czech prime minister, Andrej Babiš, have seized on the allegation that he used offshore tax havens to hide millions, AFP reports.

The Czech national organised crime headquarters said Monday it was launching a probe.

But Babiš insisted he has “never done anything illegal or wrong” and slammed the allegations as a smear campaign against him and his ANO (YEs) party that is tipped to win an election later this week.

“Laundering hundreds of millions via tax havens? YES!” read a parody of Babiš’s ANO (YES) party posters posted by Pirate party chief Ivan Bartos on his Facebook page.

“Andrej Babiš collects (criminal) cases like Pokemons,” tweeted Marketa Pekarova Adamova from the centre-right Together grouping.

Jan Hamacek, whose left-wing Social Democrats form a minority government with ANO, said he hoped Babis “does not preach water in the Czech Republic while drinking wine in tax havens”.

Analysts said the scandal was unlikely to sway Babis’s base and so torpedo his expected victory in the election, dominated by the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Babiš fans have forgiven him on many occasions, and this will be another one,” Otto Eibl, a political analyst at Masaryk University in Brno, told AFP.

Updated

The Guardian’s investigations editor, Paul Lewis, responds to Rishi Sunak’s interviews this morning (see earlier here and here):

Snowden: 'hats off to the source'

Edward Snowden, the whistleblower behind the biggest intelligence leak in history, is amused and encouraged:

The Green party has this:

Updated

The Daily Telegraph’s coverage of the leak includes a guide to readers on five legal loopholes they can use to minimise their tax bills.

Hundreds of Canadians, including the co-founder of one of the world’s largest porn companies, a billionaire fashion mogul, the country’s second richest man and a former figure skating world champion, appear in the leaked documents, the Toronto Star reports.

The leak also reveals Canada’s status as an international laggard when it comes to investigating and prosecuting those who exploit offshore secrecy to pay bribes, evade taxes and launder the proceeds of crime.

The Canada Revenue Agency has calculated that as much as $3 billion in tax revenue is lost annually to offshore accounts held by wealthy Canadians. Add to that as much as $11.4 billion in tax lost to corporations’ use of offshore subsidiaries, and tax havens cost Canadians almost $15 billion each year.

Over the next several days, the Star will be reporting on some of the players who inhabit this offshore world, ranging from a convicted fraudster to an alleged arms dealer to an accountant who secretly managed the growth of a Middle Eastern king’s luxury real estate portfolio through offshore accounts.

In some cases, records reviewed by the Star appear to show breaches of offshore transparency laws that were created after publication of the Panama Papers.

The motivations for establishing companies in secret offshore havens are often not transparent and the use of offshore tax havens often doesn’t breach the letter of any specific law.

Proving illegality – which requires a law preventing the conduct, enforcement and successful prosecution – remains treacherous as complex pieces of evidence lie sprinkled across borders, jurisdictions with different laws and corporate registries that were built to keep secrets.

Updated

The leaked papers show that Lebanon’s prime minister Najib Mikati is the owner of Hessville Investment Inc, a company created in Panama in 1994, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists reports.

Mikati’s Monaco-based company, M1 Management SAM, helped facilitate operations of the offshore company. In 2008, according to the Pandora Papers, Hessville Investment bought a property in Monaco for more than $10m.

The leaked documents also show that Mikati’s son Maher was a director of at least two British Virgin Islands-based companies, which the M1 Group used to own an office in Central London.

Responding to an email sent to Najib and Maher Mikatil, Maher Mikati told ICIJ and media partner Daraj that in 2005, his father bought a residence in Monaco by buying shares in Hessville Investment, the Panamanian company that owned it. According to Maher, the apartment’s previous owner created the company in 1994. His father still owns the property, he said.

Al Jazeera reports a response issued on behalf of Mikati:

Since its inception, M1 Group (the Mikati family business) – and all its subsidiaries around the world – have upheld a separation between public and private.”

Regrettably, the underlying logic behind the ‘Papers’ drifted toward transforming most, if not all, of those mentioned into ‘suspicious’ individuals &/or companies, by the mere fact of being listed in there – a logic that goes against the free-market business practices and good governance, in liberal economies, principles that the Mikati family defends.

Updated

Tax havens cannot be allowed to continue to worsen global inequality, according to Oxfam India.

Here’s video of Boris Johnson insisting that all Tory donations are vetted within the rules:

Kremlin dismisses 'unsubstantiated claims'

Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Monday dismissed the Pandora papers as “unsubstantiated claims” and said that no hidden wealth was found in the Russian president’s inner circle.

The Kremlin also said that the Pandora papers financial leaks expose the US as the world’s largest offshore haven.

“What catches the eye is which country is the world’s largest lagoon. This, of course, is the US,” Peskov said at a daily press briefing.

Putin, whom the US suspects of having a secret fortune, does not appear in the files by name. But numerous close associates do, including his best friend from childhood – the late Petr Kolbin – whom critics have called a “wallet” for Putin’s own wealth, and a woman with whom the Russian leader was allegedly once romantically involved.

Reuters has more on the Kremlin’s reaction:

When asked about the leaks, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov questioned how reliable the information was and said that until something Moscow regarded as trustworthy was published, there were no plans to make checks on the information.

Peskov said:

For now it is just not clear what this information is and what it is about. If there are serious publications, that are based on something concrete and refer to something specific, then we will read them with interest.

Honestly speaking, we didn’t see any hidden wealth of Putin’s inner circle in there.

Updated

Lawyers for Viktor Fedotov said:

Mr Fedotov is currently unable to respond to the false allegations being put forward due to being too unwell at present to do so. It is very disappointing that the Guardian has not given Mr Fedotov a fair opportunity to respond.

In any event, Mr Fedotov denies any allegation of wrongdoing, which appear to be based upon flawed stereotypes, and he looks forward to demonstrating the falsity of the allegations when he is able to do so.

Mr Fedotov has never had any interest in British politics and has operated in an open and transparent manner throughout the course of his career.

Read the responses in full here:

Russian tycoon’s link to alleged corruption raises questions for Tories

A Russian-born oil tycoon whose firm has made huge donations to the Conservative party secretly co-owned a company once accused of participating in a massive corruption scheme, according to leaked files seen by the Guardian.

Viktor Fedotov, 74, a reclusive executive with a mansion in Hampshire, made at least $98m (£72m) from an offshore financial structure that appears to have funnelled profits from the accused Russian company via multiple tax havens.

Documents in the Pandora papers suggest Fedotov and two other men made fortunes from the company in the mid-2000s, around the time it was alleged to have been siphoning funds from the Russian state pipeline monopoly Transneft. He appears to have used some of the money to buy a $34m private jet.

Read the full story here:

Summary

Here’s a roundup of the key reactions so far to the biggest leak ever of offshore data:

  • Boris Johnson has insisted that all donations to the Conservative party are vetted in accordance with rules. The leak revealed that Mohammed Amersi, a donor to his leadership campaign was involved in one of Europe’s biggest corruption scandals. Labour called on the Conservatives to return Amersi’s donations.
  • Rishi Sunak says it not a source of shame that London has a reputation as the tax avoidance capital of the world. He promised that the UK tax authorities would review what can be learned from the leak.
  • The Czech prime minister Andrej Babiš has said he has done nothing illegal or wrong, after the leak revealed he used a convoluted offshore structure to buy a £13m in the south of France. He claimed the leak was designed to “denigrate” him before elections this week.
  • Pakistan’s prime minister, Imran Khan, promised that his government will investigate all those mentioned in the leak. Moonis Elahi, a prominent minister in Khan’s government, contacted an offshore provider in Singapore about investing $33.7m, the leak reveals.
  • The Australian Taxation Office says it will investigate any links to Australians that emerge from the leak. About 400 Australian names are contained in the papers.
  • Jordan’s King Abdullah II claimed the leak was defamatory after it revealed he disguised his ownership of properties via a series of offshore firms. In a statement he said reports about leak “included inaccuracies and distorted and exaggerated the facts”.
  • The Tony Blair Institute has accused the Guardian of deliberately misrepresenting the purchase of Cherie Blair’s office premises. It says the Blairs have always paid their taxes in full and have never used offshore avoidance schemes of any kind.

Bastian Obermayer, the head of investigations at Süddeutsche Zeitung, one of the media partners that sifted through the leak, has this:

Updated

Johnson: 'all donations are vetted'

Boris Johnson has said all Conservative party donations are “vetted” after the revelation Mohammed Amersi, a donor to his leadership campaign was involved in one of Europe’s biggest corruption scandals.

The prime minister told reporters at a Network Rail site in Manchester:

I see that story today. But all I can say on that one is all these donations are vetted in the normal way in accordance with rules that were set up under a Labour government. So, we vet them the whole time.

Updated

Labour calls on Tories to return Amersi's donations

Labour has called on the Conservative party to return the money donated by Mohamed Amersi after the Pandora papers revealed he helped a firm with what it later accepted was a “corrupt payment” to the daughter of the former ruler of Uzbekistan.

Anneliese Dodds MP, Labour’s party chair, said:

It’s really concerning that the Conservatives have accepted hundreds of thousands of pounds from a man who appears to be closely linked to one of Europe’s biggest corruption scandals.

This is not the first time that Mohamed Amersi has been embroiled in controversy. The Conservatives should return the money he donated to them and come clean about who else is getting exclusive access to the prime minister and the chancellor in return for cash.

There can’t be one rule for senior Conservatives and their chums and another rule for everyone else.

Updated

Tax Justice UK has launched a petition calling on the UK government to close tax loopholes for the rich and powerful revealed in the leak.

It says:

The Pandora papers have exposed how the rich and powerful can use offshore structures to slash their tax bills and hide what they’re up to. A former UK prime minister, a major Conservative donor and even the crown estate are caught up in the story.

It is deeply unfair to see rich people and politicians paying less tax at the same time that the government is raising taxes on ordinary workers.

The prime minister and his government have to stand up and fix the system. This means closing loopholes and investing properly in HMRC so that everyone pays their fair share.

Updated

The Tony Blair Institute has accused the Guardian of deliberately misrepresenting the purchase of Cherie Blair’s office premises in this story.

It says the Blairs have always paid their taxes in full and have never used offshore avoidance schemes of any kind.

Some campaigners against money laundering and tax evasion are underwhelmed by the revelations and question how much new information they provide.

But Bill Browder, a fair tax campaigner and prominent critic of Vladimir Putin, calls for immediate action by the UK’s National Crime Agency.

King Abdullah II complains of defamatory allegations

King Abdullah II of Jordan has issued a lengthy response to the disclosure in the papers that he disguised his ownership of properties via series of offshore firms.

A statement issued on Monday said:

The Royal Hashemite Court has been following recently published media reports on properties owned by His Majesty King Abdullah II abroad, which included inaccuracies and distorted and exaggerated the facts.

It is no secret that His Majesty owns a number of apartments and residences in the United States and the United Kingdom. This is not unusual nor improper. His Majesty uses these properties during official visits and hosts officials and foreign dignitaries there. The King and his family members also stay in some of these properties during private visits. As such, the details pertaining to these properties are made available to the concerned parties when planning both official and private visits and coordinating on security matters.

These properties are not publicised out of security and privacy concerns, and not out of secrecy or an attempt to hide them, as these reports have claimed. Measures to maintain privacy are crucial for a head of state of His Majesty’s position.

In addition to privacy requirements, there are critical security considerations that prevent divulging His Majesty’s and his family’s places of residence, particularly in light of heightened security risks. As such, the act of revealing these addresses by some media outlets is a flagrant security breach and a threat to His Majesty’s and his family’s safety.

To this end, companies were registered in external jurisdictions to manage and administer the properties and to ensure strict compliance with all relevant legal and financial obligations.

The cost of these properties and all related expenditures have been personally funded by His Majesty. None of these expenses have been funded by the state budget or treasury. This also applies to the personal expenditures of His Majesty and his family.

All public finances and international assistance are subject to professional audits, and their allocations are fully accounted for by the government and donor entities. International assistance to the Kingdom is used for public purposes within the national budget allocations and is subject to agreed upon governance mechanisms and the oversight of donor states and institutions.

Any allegations that link these private properties to public funds or assistance are baseless and deliberate attempts to distort facts.

Such allegations are defamatory and designed to target Jordan’s reputation as well as His Majesty’s credibility and the critical role he plays regionally and internationally.

The Royal Hashemite Court categorically rejects all reports that have distorted the facts and presented misleading information and unsubstantiated conclusions, and it maintains its right to undertake the necessary legal procedures.

Updated

The Australian Taxation Office says it will investigate any links to Australians that emerge from the Pandora papers, the biggest ever leak of offshore data.

About 400 Australian names are contained in the papers, a cache of 11.9m files from companies hired by wealthy clients to create offshore structures and trusts in tax havens such as Panama, Dubai, Monaco, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands and Samoa.

Read more here:

A minister in Imran Khan’s Pakistan government pulled out of making planned investments through offshore tax havens after he was told his country’s tax authorities would be informed, documents in the Pandora papers suggest.

Chaudhry Moonis Elahi, Khan’s minister for water resources and a member of an influential family in Pakistani business and politics, expressed “concerns” in August 2017 about the investment being reported to his home country, according to the papers, and instead decided to establish a trust structure in the UK.

The leaked documents, reviewed by the Guardian and International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), do not specify why Elahi became concerned. But they show he had presented as his source of funds for the investments a $33.7m (£25m) sale of a family-owned company in Lahore that had been the subject of historical corruption allegations.

Khan has promised that his government will investigate all those mentioned in the paper (see earlier).

Read more here:

The papers reveal that Ecuador’s president, Guillermo Lasso, a former banker, replaced a Panamanian foundation that made monthly payments to his close family members with a trust based in South Dakota in the US.

The Spanish newspaper, El Pais, one of the media partners which sifted through the documents reports:

According to the documents and the investigation carried out by local media site El Universo, Lasso ended up operating through 14 offshore companies, most of them in Panama, closing them only after former left-wing Ecuadorian premier Rafael Correa promoted a law banning candidates from being the beneficial owners of companies located in tax havens.

In his defence, Lasso claims that he opened these opaque companies because national legislation prevents bankers from investing in his country. He also claims that 10 of these companies are already inactive; he denies any relationship with or profit from the other four.

Today, Lasso tweeted that he acted within the law.

“All my income has been declared and I have paid the corresponding taxes in Ecuador,” he said.

Updated

The Guardian’s Today in Focus podcast provides an excellent primer to the Pandora papers. In it we learn that the anonymous individual who leaked the data was codenamed “Aladdin”.

Updated

Responding to allegations that a prominent Conservative party donor was involved in one of Europe’s biggest corruption scandals, Daniel Bruce, chief executive at Transparency International UK, said:

These allegations add further weight to the case to reform regulation of political donations in the UK. There is a clear and growing consensus that the current rules controlling the money in British politics are out-of-date and in need of urgent reform.

Politics parties’ due diligence on major donations should go beyond the box-ticking exercise of simply finding the donor on the electoral roll. The rules already prevent parties from accepting the proven proceeds of crime or corruption, but donations that raise red flags should also be rejected out of principle. As well as introducing a cap on the amount an individual can give, political parties should carefully consider whether their donors adhere to the same values the party claims to hold.

Updated

The White House has promised a “crackdown on unfair tax schemes that give big corporations a leg-up”.

The US emerges from the leak as a leading tax haven. The files suggest the state of South Dakota, in particular, is sheltering billions of dollars in wealth linked to individuals previously accused of serious financial crimes.

Updated

The Labour party has been swift to seize on the leaks despite the awkward revelation that its former leader and prime minister Tony Blair saving property tax from an offshore company.

Shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy tweeted this:

Margaret Hodge, a former minister under Blair and the former chair of the public accounts committee, tweeted this thread:

And here’s former shadow chancellor John McDonnell on Sunak’s attitude to the problem:

Updated

Sunak: UK's track record on tackling tax avoidance is 'very strong'

Rishi Sunak has denied being ashamed of London’s reputation as the tax avoidance capital of the world.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the chancellor said:

I don’t think it is a source of shame because actually our track record on this issue is very strong. My predecessors, George Osborne especially, led the world in improving a couple of things: one is something called transparency, making sure that we know who owns things. And the second thing is exchanging data between tax authorities or enforcement authorities. The independent global body called FATF [Financial Action Task Force] has said that we are one of the best in the world at this.

But as you’ve seen from the papers, it is a global problem. There’s a global dimension to it. And we need other countries to cooperate with us to tackle this, but we are determined to do that. And I said our track record on this is very strong.

When it was pointed out to him that half of all Russian money laundering is estimated to occur in the UK, Sunak said:

And the independent global body FATF said, when they last looked at this in 2018, that we were probably one of the world’s best places to tackle money laundering. There is always more we can do.

Imran Khan: 'Pakistanis mentioned in leak will be investigated'

In Pakistan, Moonis Elahi, a prominent minister in prime minister Imran Khan’s government, contacted an offshore provider in Singapore about investing $33.7m.

In his first reaction to the leak, Khan welcomed the leak but blamed rich governments for failing to tackle the problem.

He also promised that his government will investigate all those mentioned in the papers.

Here’s his Twitter thread:

There is lots of reaction to work through since the first stories were published on Sunday.

Andrej Babiš, the billionaire Czech prime minister, is under pressure to explain a convoluted offshore structure he used to finance his purchase of a £13m mansion in the south of France.

Initially his office did not respond to the Guardian’s requests for comment on his offshore companies. He also refused to talk to a BBC camera crew about his French property when they questioned him on the Czech election campaign trail.

But after publication, Babiš tweeted this:

I have never done anything illegal or wrong, but that does not prevent them from trying to denigrate me again and influence the Czech parliamentary elections.

Updated

Welcome to live coverage of the Pandora papers revelations and the reaction and fall out to them.

The UK chancellor, Rishi Sunak, has pledged that the UK tax authorities will review the biggest leak of offshore data in history.

Speaking to Sky News, he said: “HMRC (HM Revenue & Customs) will look through those [documents] to see if there is anything we can learn.”

Sunak, who is thought to be the richest man in the UK cabinet, insisted he has not benefited from any offshore tax arrangements.

And he claimed the UK was tackling the issue. He said:

We have a very good track record on exactly this type of activity and tackling it.

We’ve led the world in improving the sharing of information between tax authorities, law enforcement agencies, registers of what are called beneficial ownership is something that we are proud leaders on here in the UK.

But as as the papers showed this is a global phenomenon, there’s a global dimension to it, we can do our bit but we require other countries to cooperate with us as well and you will continue to expect us to press on that.

Sunak was also challenged on BBC Breakfast about a Pandora paper leak about Mohamed Amersi, a major Conservative party donor who funded Boris Johnson’s campaign to become prime minister. The papers reveal that he advised on the structure of a deal that was later found to be a $220m (£162m) bribe for the daughter of the then president of Uzbekistan

Sunak said:

This is matter for the party specifically, but my understanding is that we carry out compliance checks in line with the referendums and political parties legislation that was put in place by the Labour government. And those are the compliance checks that are required by law. Those are the compliance checks that the party carries out.

Updated

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