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The Panama Papers disclosures in April 2016 revealed information about tax avoidance and fraud among political elites and the wealthy on a global scale. But did the disclosures affect relevant political attitudes and behavior, including perceptions of corruption, redistributive preferences, and voting intentions? We leverage nationally representative surveys that were in the field at the time in two heavily impacted countries, France and Spain, and treat the disclosures as a natural experiment, comparing respondents questioned just before and just after the disclosures. Our design highlights the difficulty, at times, of interpreting natural experiments, given the potentially compounded treatments that arise as events unfold over time, and the common inability to properly determine views prior to the treatment. That said, the analysis indicates that the disclosures had limited effects on the domains most likely affected by such a scandal, consistent with them being interpreted based on existing beliefs and identities. Our results thus contradict prior findings which suggest that the Panama Papers had substantial effects on redistributive attitudes, and shed further light on voters' learning and updating around uncertain, yet emotionally laden, political facts.

Acknowledgements -- Contents -- About the Author -- Introduction -- 1 Money Laundering Through Real Estate -- 1.1 The Nguema Obiang Cases -- 1.2 New York Real Estate -- Bibliography -- 2 Money Laundering Through Agribusiness -- Bibliography -- 3 Money Laundering Typologies Evidenced in the "Panama Papers" -- 3.1 Offshore Companies and Concealing the Beneficial Owner -- 3.1.1 Remittance Companies and Black Market Moneychangers -- 3.1.2 NGOs and Trusts -- Bibliography -- 4 Efforts to Combat Money Laundering -- 4.1 Property Confiscation -- 4.2 International Legal Cooperation -- 4.3 Asset Repatriation -- Bibliography -- 5 Conclusions -- Bibliography -- 6 Proposals to Improve the War Against Money Laundering Through Real Estate and Agribusiness -- 6.1 An International Perspective -- 6.1.1 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) -- 6.1.2 Tax Havens, Offshore Accounts, and Trusts -- 6.1.3 International Legal Cooperation and Repatriation -- 6.2 A National Perspective -- 6.2.1 Freezing, Seizing, Confiscating, and Repatriating Assets -- 6.2.2 Regulatory Agencies -- 6.2.3 Payments, Remittances, and Financial Institutions -- 6.2.4 Offshore Accounts and Trusts -- 6.2.5 NPOs and Foundations -- 6.2.6 Money Laundering Laws: Reports, Rural Activity, and Lawyers -- 6.2.7 Law Enforcement Agencies and Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) -- 6.2.8 Investigating and Prosecuting Tax Fraud -- 6.2.9 Real Estate Brokers and Joint Owners -- Bibliography -- Index

Cover -- Beyond the Panama Papers. The Performance of EU Good Governance Promotion -- Contents -- For a More Effective Link Between EU Funds and Good Governance -- Changing the norm of corruption -- EU aid and good governance promotion -- Types of EU aid -- Distribution of Aid by Country and Region -- The link between governance change and EU aid -- The Direct Evidence and its Puzzles -- Modernisation -- Institutional transfer -- Conclusions and policy options. What canand should the EU do? -- The recommendations that we make to EU therefore are as follows -- Appendix A -- 1. EU Democracy Promotion, Conditionality and Judicial Autonomy -- Introduction -- EU conditionality, direct investment and judicial autonomy -- Data and analysis -- Control variables -- Estimation -- Results -- Leverage -- Conclusion -- References -- 2. Spain: Roads to Good Governance? How EU Structural Funds Impact Governance across Regions -- Introduction -- Spain -- Theory and literature -- Analysis of resources and constraints -- Resources for corruption -- The role of restrictions -- References -- 3. Slovakia: The Impact of EU Good Governance Aid 2007-2013 -- Slovakia's governance regime -- The role of EU -- Results and discussion -- References -- 4. Romania: Europeanisation of Good Governance. Where and why does it fail, and what can bedone about it? -- What is good governance? -- Where does the Europeanisation of good governance fail? -- Substantive legality: Considerable improvement -- Formal legality: Pathological development -- Capacity: Considerable progress -- Impartiality: Only judicial independence, the rest of the state lags behind -- Coherence: Towards increased fragmentation -- Efficiency-effectiveness: Selective progress within broad stagnation -- What prevents Europeanisation of governance? -- The problem of valuing quantity over quality.

A complex business environment calls for a flexible administrative law for the agencies that oversee corporations. No where illustrates this maxim better than Hong Kong, and its need to reform corporate regulations after the Panama Papers revelations. We describe how only a 'non-administrative' administrative law can best cope with the challenges facing the regulation of corporate governance. Such a flexible, results-oriented approach to administrative law develops new principles and tests, rather than gives civil servants instructions. Such an approach to corporate governance can facilitate the assessment of company governance, corporate disclosure, the self-regulation of professional groups like lawyers and accountants, as well as ensure corporations engage in 'legitimate economic purposes.' We engage with the literature, showing why such a flexible approach to administrative rulemaking would more likely reduce some of the government regulation and oversight problems exposed by the Panama Papers than previous approaches toward drafting and implementing administrative law (at least in this area).

This last title in the series covers the most important findings of the five years EU sponsored ANTICORRP project dealing with corruption and organized crime. How prone to corruption are EU funds? Has EU managed to improve governance in the countries that it assists? Using the new index of public integrity and a variety of other tools created in the project this issue looks at how EU funds and norms affected old member states (like Spain), new member states (Slovakia, Romania), accession countries (Turkey) and the countries recipient of development funds (Egypt, Tanzania, Tunisia). The data covers over a decade of structural and development funds, and the findings show the challenges to changing governance across borders, the different paths that each country has experienced and suggest avenues of reforming development aid for improving governance.

This last title in the series covers the most important findings of the five yearsEU sponsored ANTICORRP project dealing with corruption and organized crime.How prone to corruption are EU funds? Has EU managed to improve governancein the countries that it assists? Using the new index of public integrity and avariety of other tools created in the project this issue looks at how EU funds andnorms affected old member states (like Spain), new member states (Slovakia,Romania), accession countries (Turkey) and the countries recipient of developmentfunds (Egypt, Tanzania, Tunisia). The data covers over a decade of structuraland development funds, and the findings show the challenges to changing governanceacross borders, the different paths that each country has experiencedand suggest avenues of reforming development aid for improving governance.

"Plaintiff is entitled ... to make his own judgment about whether disclosing his identity under seal to the Court would pose an inordinate risk to his personal safety. But he is not entitled ... to special dispensation from the well-established requirements of the law."

The Panama Papers is currently the world's largest whistleblower case that involved 11.5 million leaked documents and over 214,000 offshore entities. It all linked back to one Panamanian law firm, Mossack Fonseca. In 2016, over 400 investigative journalists collaboratively and simultaneously published stories that exposed the money laundering and tax-evading schemes committed by the rich and powerful. This included political figures and heads of states, celebrities, sports figures, criminal organizations, and terrorist groups. This article aims to dissect the innerworkings of Mossack Fonseca's asset-shielding strategy and investigate how the Panamanian law firm was able to circumvent the tax and anti-money laundering laws of over 50 countries. We will also examine the global responses to the Panama Papers, the proposed reforms and strategies, and the obstacles to moving forward. Finally, this article explores the ethical duties of lawyers, the significance of attorney-client privilege, and the implications of monetarily incentivizing whistleblowers.

Steueroasen besitzen drei wichtige Merkmale, die aus der Sicht von Steuerhinterziehern und Steuervermeidern anderer Länder besondere Anziehungskraft haben. Sie bieten niedrige Steuersätze für alle oder für bestimmte Kapitaleinkommen. Sie weisen eine hohe politische Stabilität und funktionierende Institutionen auf. Schließlich verbinden sie dies mit einem hohen Maß an faktischer Intransparenz in den Besitzstrukturen von Briefkastenfirmen sowie, zumindest in der Vergangenheit, einer ausgeprägten Vertraulichkeit von Bankdaten. Mit diesen Charakteristika wird unterschiedlichen Problemen Vorschub geleistet. Dazu zählen beispielsweise Steuerhinterziehungen von wohlbetuchten Privatpersonen und Geschäftsleuten aus westlichen Ländern sowie Geldwäsche aus illegalen Geschäften. Darüber hinaus spielen Briefkastenfirmen in Steueroasen eine wichtige Rolle bei der Vertuschung von Geschäftsstrukturen. Unter Führung der OECD hat sich in den letzten Jahren der politische Druck auf die internationalen Steueroasen erhöht. Im Vordergrund stehen dabei bilaterale und multilaterale Abkommen zum Informationsaustausch.

Although journalism has long been considered a profession of lone wolves, its present and future is shaped by collaborative practices of various kinds. The investigation of the Panama Papers by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and its more than 100 media partners worldwide is an impressive example of collaborative journalism across media, language and national borders. This article focuses on the impact of such cross-border journalism projects on the transnationalization of public communication in digital media environments. It addresses the question of what kind of 'networked public sphere' was created by the revelations of the Panama Papers, exemplified by the communication structures that evolved on the networking platform Twitter. Digital media such as Twitter have the potential to constitute more grounded public spheres than traditional media and to foster interconnections between different publics across national and language barriers. We trace whether or not the transnational collaborative Panama Papers investigation paved the way for a networked public sphere characterized by (1) transnational attention to the issue and (2) transnational interconnections through Twitter users interacting across country and language boundaries and thereby contributing to global public communication.