Panama Papers Law Firm Apologizes to Chinese Bank Over Leak

The law firm which become the center of Panama Papers controversy wrote a letter of apology to its Chinese banking client. Mossack Fonseca would look to sustain its business in Asia after a leak of its financial data last month.

The letter was written to apologize to its Chinese banking client, as Reuters reported it has seen the copy of the letter. The Panama law firm seeks to recover trust from its Asian clients after a massive leakof its financial data. The letter was written as response to queries from the Chinese bank about compliance with global financial standards.

It is not clear whether other financial institutions also ask similar queries from the law firm. Nevertheless, the letter showed that there is concern with the issues raised by overhyped publicity surrounding the leak. The letter was signed by regional general manager of Mossack Fonseca and expressing its regret with any misuse of its services or the companies it set up.

"If the unauthorized illegal leaks from Mossack Fonseca company servers have created any inconvenience for (the bank) and your clients, we wish to once again apologize," the letter said.

While in an email statement, spokeperson of the law firm said there is nothing illegal in its practice. While the leaked had made a deep confusion regarding the firm's business.

"As such, we are routinely speaking to our clients and other related parties that have questions to explain that ... nothing in the illegally obtained cache of documents suggests we have done anything wrong or illegal," said the spokeperson.

While journalists who teamed up in the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) planned to release the paper online according to  Strait Times. Following the release of the data which was scheduled at 6pm GMT yesterday, all financial data will be publicly available in a searchable form. While the lawfirm has already issued a "cease and desist" letter to the ICIJ, saying the action to put up information publicly would violate attorney-client privilege.

In respond to the letter, deputy director of ICIJ Marina Walker Guevara argued the importance for public to see the information on offshore companies in the Panama Papers. "We think that information about who owns the company should be public and transparent. this is not disclosing private information en masse."

The document was obtained from the lawfirm's server and consist of 2.6 terabytes in a11.5 million documents. The document exposed 214,000 shell companies operated by Mossack Fonseca to help their clients laundering money in offshore accounts. There are at least 36 Americans listed in the documents, according to USA Today, but none of them are available.

In order to sustain its business in Asia, Mossack Fonseca wrote a letter of apology to its Chinese banking client. The letter was sent as a response to the client's queries regarding compliance with global financial standards.

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Mossack Fonseca, China, Banking, Panama Papers, panama papers law firm

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