Igor Sechin
Igor Ivanovich Sechin (Russian: Игорь Иванович Сечин; born 7 September 1960) is a Russian oligarch and a government official, considered a close ally and "de facto deputy" of Vladimir Putin.[2] Sechin is often described as one of Putin's most conservative counselors and the leader of the Kremlin's Siloviki faction, a lobby gathering former security services agents.[3][4][5][a] Until 21 May 2012, he served as Deputy Prime Minister of Russia in Vladimir Putin's cabinet,[6][7] and he is currently the Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman of the Management Board of Rosneft, the Russian state oil company.[8] His nickname is Darth Vader.[9]
In 2008, Igor Sechin was involved with the BP oil company and did private negotiations with the BP's CEO Bob Dudley.[16] In 2008, Hugo Chávez said that the idea for Venezuelan nuclear energy program came from Sechin. Sechin negotiated deals on weapons and nuclear technology deliveries to Venezuela.[17][18] In July 2009, Sechin negotiated deals with Cuba that brought Russia into deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.[19]
Sechin also presides over the Board of Directors of the United Shipbuilding Corporation, and helped with negotiations with France over the purchase of four Mistral-class ships. Sechin argued that two ships should be constructed in Russia and two in France, as opposed to the initial offer that only one be constructed in Russia.[20] Piotr Żochowski, of the Polish Center for Eastern Studies, argued that "it cannot be ruled out that Sechin's stance on this issue results from his personal financial involvement in the St Petersburg shipbuilding industry".[20]
On 12 April 2011, Sechin resigned from the board of Rosneft upon President Medvedev's 31 March 2011 order for senior officials to resign from large companies.[21] After Vladimir Putin became President of Russia in May 2012, he later resigned as vice prime minister on 21 May 2012 and rejoined the executive board of Rosneft as chairman and became the executive secretary for the Russia Federation's commission on the development strategy of the fuel and energy complex and environmental safety (Russian: комиссии по вопросам стратегии развития ТЭКа и экологической безопасности) in June.[6][7]
In December 2014, a CNBC article noted that Sechin is "widely believed to be Russia's second-most powerful person" after President Putin.[22] In December 2017, The Guardian noted that Sechin "is widely seen as the second most powerful man in Russia after Vladimir Putin".[23]
The Steele dossier alleged that Sechin met with Carter Page in 2016 as a representative of the Donald Trump presidential campaign, and offered Trump the brokerage of a 19.6% private share in Rosneft in exchange for lifting sanctions imposed following the 2014 Russian intervention in Ukraine.[24][25][26][c] The 2019 Mueller Report did not corroborate those allegations, and neither Page nor Sechin were indicted with any crime.[27]
Sechin was instrumental in the arrest and trial of Putin’s former minister of economy, Alexei Ulyukaev, charged and found guilty of soliciting a bribe from Igor Sechin. The verdict was delivered after hearing testimony from Sechin in a closed trial,[28] and is another indicator, according to The Financial times, of the power wielded by Sechin in Russian politics.[29]
In November 2018, Sechin released a statement at the first Russian-Chinese Energy Business Forum in Beijing, about increased levels of cooperation between Rosneft and Chinese owned energy companies, citing “increased protectionism and threats of trade wars” as a reason for the cooperation.[30][31] Agreements of cooperation were signed between Rosneft and Chinese Hengli Group and include expansion in exploration as well as production and refining.[32]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Sechin
Paradise Papers
The Paradise Papers are a set of 13.4 million confidential electronic documents relating to offshore investments that were leaked to the German reporters Frederik Obermaier and Bastian Obermayer,[1] from the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. The newspaper shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists,[2] and a network of more than 380 journalists. Some of the details were made public on 5 November 2017 and stories are still being released.
The documents originate from the legal firm Appleby, the corporate services providers Estera and Asiaciti Trust, and business registries in 19 tax jurisdictions.[3] They contain the names of more than 120,000 people and companies.[4] Among those whose financial affairs are mentioned are, separately, AIG,[5] Prince Charles[6] and Queen Elizabeth II,[7] President of Colombia Juan Manuel Santos, and U.S. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross.[8]
The released information resulted in scandal, litigation, and loss of position for some of the named, as well as litigation against the media and journalists who published the papers.
On 20 October 2017, an anonymous Reddit user hinted at the existence of the Paradise Papers.[9] Later that month, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) approached the offshore law firm Appleby with allegations of wrongdoing. Appleby said that some of its data had been stolen in a cyberattack in the previous year and denied the ICIJ's allegations.[10] After media outlets started reporting on the documents, the company said there was "no evidence of wrongdoing", and they "are a law firm which advises clients on legitimate and lawful ways to conduct their business", and they "do not tolerate illegal behaviour".[11]
Appleby stated the firm "was not the subject of a leak but of a serious criminal act", and "this was an illegal computer hack". The company added: "Our systems were accessed by an intruder who deployed the tactics of a professional hacker".[12][13]
The documents were acquired by the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, which had also obtained the Panama Papers in 2016. According to the BBC, the name "Paradise Papers" reflects "the idyllic profiles of many of the offshore jurisdictions whose workings are unveiled", so-called tax havens, or "tax paradises".[3]
The data breach comprises some 13.4 million documents—totaling about 1.4 terabytes—from two offshore service providers, Appleby and Asiaciti Trust, and from the company registers of 19 tax havens.[14] Süddeutsche Zeitung journalists contacted the ICIJ, which has been investigating the documents with 100 media partners. The consortium made the data available to these media partners using Neo4j,[15] a graph-database platform made for connected data, and Linkurious,[16] graph-visualization software. This allowed journalists across the globe to undertake collaborative investigative work. The documents were released by the consortium on 5 November 2017.[8][17]
According to the papers, Allergan (the manufacturer of Botox), Allianz, Apple Inc., Facebook, Global Vantedge, McDonald's, Nike, Inc., Siemens, The Walt Disney Company, Twitter, Uber, Walmart, and Yahoo! are among the corporations that own offshore companies.[18][19] According to The Express Tribune, "Apple, Nike, and Facebook avoided billions of dollars in tax using offshore companies."[20]
Apple criticised the reports as inaccurate and misleading, saying that it is the largest taxpayer in the world, and it "pays every dollar it owes in every country around the world".[21]
Among the Indian companies listed in the papers are Apollo Tyres, the Essel Group,[22] D S Construction, Emaar MGF, GMR Group, Havells, Hinduja Group, the Hiranandani Group, Jindal Steel, the Sun Group[23] and Videocon.[24]
A great deal of the company's intangible property was exposed around the time of an internal Apple Inc. reorganization of three Irish subsidiaries. The company's 2015 gross domestic product showed a 26% increase, and close to $270 billion of intangible assets suddenly appeared in Ireland as the year began – more than the entire value of all residential property in Ireland. This may indicate that Apple took advantage of a tax incentive known as a capital allowance, which gives Irish companies generous tax breaks for buying intangible property – essentially intellectual property like patents. In other words, Apple (some suggest) transferred them to a subsidiary located in Ireland for the tax incentives, and didn't have to pay any tax on the transaction in Bermuda either, on the value it declared on the property when it sold them to itself.[citation needed]
Following a 2013 US Senate investigation, which featured testimony by CEO Tim Cook, Ireland announced that henceforth Irish companies would be required to declare tax residency somewhere in the world. Apple had been paying a lower rate of corporate taxes in Ireland in a so-called sweetheart deal. This attracted the attention of EU regulators as many multinationals were doing the same thing. As the tax break in the Netherlands came to a scheduled end, Apple's law firm, Baker McKenzie, researched island tax havens, asking Appleby officials in numerous jurisdictions to confirm "that an Irish company can conduct management activities … without being subject to taxation in your jurisdiction." Two of the subsidiaries moved to Jersey and took intellectual property with them[citation needed]. The third is receiving tax breaks in Ireland for buying Apple IP from another Apple subsidiary[citation needed].
The Jersey Financial Services Commission (JFSC) issued a statement regarding Apple on 7 November 2017.[25] The JFSC confirmed that the two Apple subsidiaries referred to by the media are not Jersey-registered companies and their understanding is that Apple funds relating to these entities have not been remitted to or held in the Island.
The JFSC states that it has not seen any of the documentation that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) claims to hold following the Appleby data breach. If the ICIJ possesses data of a criminal or regulatory nature which relates to business activities in Jersey then the JFSC requested that this information is shared with them and, if there is any evidence of regulatory wrongdoing, then they would investigate and take action if appropriate.
The Government of Jersey (States of Jersey) also issued a statement of similar effect on 7 November 2017.[26]
It is of further note that the jurisdiction of Jersey has recently been independently assessed as fully compliant with international regulatory guidelines on tax transparency.[27]
The EU, under the leadership of Jean-Claude Juncker, threatened to sue Ireland over its tax deals, although Juncker himself had approved similar tax deals in his own country, Luxembourg. Apple paid all of its taxes in Ireland as required by that country so Ireland is appealing the EU decision. HP, Nike, Microsoft and others use the same tax arrangements in Ireland, Luxembourg and other countries,[citation needed] but Apple is frequently cited as a media example.[28] Irish companies are required to pay taxes in Ireland, but if they convince authorities[which?] that they are "managed and controlled" from abroad, the companies may win an exemption.
As of November 2017, Apple held $252 billion offshore.[29] However, Apple has previously publicly stated that it reinvests post-tax earnings (generated outside the US) into the global economy via investment funds held offshore.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Papers
Moar
Canada
Former Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien
Three former Canadian Prime Ministers are named in the Paradise Papers: Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, and Brian Mulroney.[101] According to the papers, Stephen Bronfman, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's adviser and close friend, a Liberal Party fundraiser credited with putting Trudeau into office, moved millions of dollars offshore for former Liberal Party Senator Leo Kolber.[102] The offshore maneuvers may have avoided taxes in Canada, the United States and Israel, according to experts who reviewed some of the 3,000-plus files detailing the trust's activities.[2]
Costa Rica
Former president José María Figueres sat on the board of energy company Energia Global International, along with his brother and Timothy Phillips. The company was bought in 2001 by Enel SpA, an Italian power company, for $73 million, plus $37 million in debt cancellation. Figueres resigned from the board that year, at the annual EF meeting in Davos. He was also CEO of World Economic Forum from 2000 to 2004, and resigned as a result of allegations he called "unfounded" about $900,000 in consulting fees from a French telecommunications firm.[56]
Mexico
According to the files, trade union leader and politician Joaquín Gamboa Pascoe had investments worth $15.5 million; other mentioned politicians are Pedro Aspe Armella, Alejandro Gertz Manero, and officials from PEMEX. High-profile Mexicans in the files include billionaire Carlos Slim,[103] priest Marcial Maciel known as "the greatest fundraiser of the modern Roman Catholic church",[103] and Ricardo Salinas Pliego.[103] In an interview with Proceso, Gertz Manero, formerly National Security Secretary, denied all knowledge of the company, of which he was vice-president, and which was started by his brother, its president.[56]
Still Moar
United States
The leaked documents revealed that Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross holds stakes in businesses connected to sanctioned Russian oligarchs, which he did not disclose during his confirmation hearings.
According to the papers, United States Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross holds stakes in businesses which deal with Russian oligarchs Leonid Mikhelson and Gennady Timchenko who are subject to U.S. sanctions,[8] as well as Russian president Vladimir Putin's son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov.[104] When reporters working on the Paradise Papers contacted Ross concerning his stake in Navigator Holdings, he did not deny the tie, but the day before his response became public he shorted the stock and apparently made a profit after the stock price dropped 4% after the story appeared.[105]
Other members of the Trump administration that appear in the documents include former United States Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former director of the National Economic Council Gary D. Cohn.[2][104][106] Offshore ties of more than a dozen Trump advisers, Cabinet members and major donors appear in the leaked data.[107]
Tillerson, while CEO of Exxon Yemen, was a director of a company with a joint venture agreement with a Yemeni state-owned company. He sued when Yemen ended the joint venture and turned over operations to a Yemeni company, and lost. He was still a company director and the offshore company was still active as recently as 2015.[108]
The documents also revealed that, between 2009 and 2011, Russian state organizations with ties to Putin pursued large investments in Facebook and Twitter via an intermediary—Russian-American entrepreneur Yuri Milner, who befriended Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg[109] and was a business associate of Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law.[110]
American singer Madonna, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, American billionaire George Soros, founder of Open Society Foundations,[111] and former NATO supreme commander in Europe General Wesley Clark are also named in the papers.[112]
This list includes some of President Donald Trump's foremost donors, who together funneled nearly $60 million to organizations supporting his campaign and transition. They include casino magnate Sheldon Adelson; resort owner Steve Wynn; hedge fund managers Robert Mercer and Paul Singer; and private equity investors Tom Barrack, Stephen Schwarzman, and Carl Icahn.
Prominent Democratic donors also appear in the law firm's files. Questions have arisen about Democratic Party donor Penny Pritzker's compliance with federal ethics rules. She had pledged to divest from more than 200 firms when she was confirmed as President Barack Obama's commerce secretary in 2013, but records show that she transferred assets to a company owned by her children's trusts, which shared the same address as her office.[113]
The late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein also figures in the Paradise Papers, as chairman from at least 2000 to 2007 of a Bermudan-registered company, Liquid Funding, Ltd., partially owned by Bear Stearns.[114]
Economist Gabriel Zucman and his colleagues estimate that 63% of foreign profits made by American multinational corporations are stored in subsidiaries and offshore accounts, depriving the country of about $70 billion in tax revenue each year.[115]
In the United Kingdom, the public reaction to the Paradise Papers has been relatively muted compared to similar leaks in the past, such as the Panama Papers.[122] Possible reasons include the absence of overt illegality in the information; most media sources are careful to point out that the schemes in the Paradise Papers are generally lawful.[123] A statement on behalf of Queen Elizabeth confirmed that the Royal Estate paid full UK tax on her offshore investments.[124] Other public comments by notable popular public figures who appeared in the Papers may also play a part; Bono stated "I've been assured by those running the company that it is fully tax compliant, but if that is not the case, I want to know as much as the tax office does, and so I also welcome the audit they have said they will undertake."[125] Jack Peat of The London Economic has suggested that much of the media has ignored the story of the Paradise Papers because those media organisations are owned by individuals implicated in the papers, such as Daily Telegraph owners David and Frederick Barclay, Daily Mail owner Jonathan Harmsworth, and The Sun and The Times owner Rupert Murdoch.[126]
After the leak, more than 30 Members of the European Parliament issued an open letter criticizing the British government for failing to take action against the offshore tax industry.[127]
Gavin St Pier, an elected Deputy of the tax haven Guernsey, stated that the "coverage was part of a well-orchestrated, ongoing campaign".[128] He also averred that despite having the information since 2016, the timing of the release was deliberately delayed to coincide with the meeting of EU Finance Ministers ahead of the proposed discussion of a tax haven blacklist.[128]
Commenting on the Paradise Papers leak, United States Senator and 2016 presidential candidate Bernie Sanders warned of "rapid movement toward international oligarchy", saying, "The Paradise Papers shows how these billionaires and multinational corporations get richer by hiding their wealth and profits and avoid paying their fair share of taxes."[129] The Democratic leader in the US Senate, Chuck Schumer, and the ranking Democratic member of the Senate finance committee, Ron Wyden, issued a joint statement accusing Republicans of "pushing a reform of the tax code that fails to close egregious loopholes revealed by the leaks."[129]
On 18 December 2017, it was reported that Appleby had issued legal proceedings against the BBC and The Guardian for breach of confidence. The BBC and The Guardian said they would "vigorously" defend the action.[130]
Appleby released a media statement to explain the necessity to seek legal action[131] and provided subsequent update.[132] The Guardian and the BBC settled the dispute with Appleby in May 2018.[133]
In October 2018, Swiss-based multinational Glencore sought an injunction with the Australian High Court to prevent the use of Paradise Papers documents by the Australian Taxation Office in any legal action against the miner. Glencore asserted that the documents in question are subject to legal professional privilege. Glencore's writ has four plaintiffs: Glencore International AG (an intermediate holding company resident in Switzerland), Glencore Investment Pty Ltd (a company incorporated in Australia), Glencore Australia Holdings Pty Ltd (a company incorporated in Australia), and Glencore Investment Holdings Australia Ltd (a company incorporated in Bermuda).[134] Glencore was unsuccessful in this proceeding and the court held that the ATO could use the documents.[135]
In January 2019, journalist Pelin Ünker was sentenced to a fine and over a year in prison for publishing Paradise Papers material with regard to offshore accounts of former Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim and his sons.[136][137]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradise_Papers
Wilbur Ross
Wilbur Louis Ross Jr. (born November 28, 1937) is an American investor and the current United States Secretary of Commerce. On November 30, 2016, then-President-elect Donald Trump announced that he would nominate Ross for that post. On February 27, 2017, the Senate confirmed him in a 72–27 vote. He was sworn into office on February 28, 2017.
Before he was appointed, Ross was a banker known for acquiring and restructuring failed companies in industries such as steel, coal, telecommunications, and textiles, later selling them for a profit after operations improved, a record that had earned him the moniker "King of Bankruptcy".[2]
Ross had been a Democrat until he registered as a Republican in November 2016 in order to work for Trump.
In 1976, Ross began his 24-year employment with the New York City office of Rothschild & Co, where he ran the bankruptcy restructuring advisory practice.[3][13] By 1998, Ross was involved in eight of the 25 biggest bankruptcies to date, including Drexel Burnham Lambert, Texaco, Public Service of New Hampshire (now Eversource Energy), and Eastern Air Lines.[12][14]
In the 1980s, Donald Trump's three casinos in Atlantic City were under threat of foreclosure from lenders. Ross, who was then the senior managing director of Rothschild & Co, represented investors in the casino. Along with Carl Icahn, Ross convinced bondholders to strike a deal that allowed Trump to keep control of the casinos.[13][15]
In February 2002, WL Ross & Co founded International Steel Group. He first agreed to buy the assets of bankrupt Ling-Temco-Vought for $325 million, paying $11 per ton of capacity when other firms were trading for $200 per ton of capacity.[19] A few weeks later, George W. Bush slapped a 30% tariff on many types of imported steel. A year later, WL Ross & Co acquired the assets of bankrupt Bethlehem Steel. As part of the bankruptcy reorganizations, these companies shifted their huge pension liabilities to the government-backed Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation.[3]
In November 2017, leaked documents known as the Paradise Papers showed that, during his confirmation hearings, Ross had failed to clearly disclose a financial interest in Navigator Gas, a shipping company which transports petrochemicals for Russian gas and petrochemicals company Sibur.[79][80] Ross had failed to clearly disclose ties to Russian interests during his confirmation hearings.[80] While his confirmation was pending, Ross promised in a letter to the Office of Congressional Ethics to cut ties "with more than 80 financial entities in which he has interests". This letter played a key role in securing his confirmation. However, according to the leaked documents, while he did divest some holdings, he did not disclose the full extent of those he retained.
Speaking about his financial ties to Navigator, Ross said the media was making "a lot more out of it than it deserves" and "There is nothing wrong with it. The fact that it happens to be called a Russian company doesn't mean there is any evil in it."[81] A spokesman for Ross stated that Ross has never met Shamalov, Timchenko or Mikhelson and that Ross "recuses himself from any matters focused of transoceanic shipping vessels, but has been generally supportive of the administration's sanctions of Russian and Venezuelan entities".[79]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilbur_Ross