PM of Iceland's Steps Aside due to Panama PapersNewsletter European

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PM of Iceland’s Steps aside due to Panama Papers

Economy 6 April 2016 , by Newsletter European

Prime Minister of Iceland, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson has officially stepped aside from his office last night, after more than 20,000 demonstrators gathered in Reykyavik, Iceland, calling for his resignation. Nevertheless, Gunnlaugsson’s move needs to be approved first by his government’s coalition partners and the President before becoming official.

An unprecedented leak of information from the world’s fourth-largest offshore firm Mossack Fonseca, called Panama Papers, revealed that his wife, Anna Sigurlaug Pálsdóttir, owns an offshore investment company, holding nearly $4 million in bonds in Iceland’s failed banks. So, while authorities across the globe have now opened investigations, Gunnlaugsson have become the first casualty among hundreds of others wealthy and politically powerful people named in the documents. The full list of companies and people linked to them will be released in early May by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalist (ICIJ) that led the investigation.

This was possible thanks to the 2.6 terabytes of data of the company gained by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. ICIJ, together with other more 100 media partners, spent a year going through 11.5 million internal files of the company. They include nearly 40 years of data showing Mossack Fonseca’s clients were more than 14,000 law firms, banks, foundations and companies. Some of them were also under international sanctions or blacklisted for corruption and intimidation, such as Rami Makhlouf, cousin of President Assad. After restrictions were imposed, Mossack Fonseca continued to front six businesses for him, allowing the Syrian government to avoid the sanctions and fund its war machine.

While declaring its support to international efforts for clarity, Mossack Fonseca’s sake denied any criminal wrongdoing.