Offshore A-Z is a digital repository of companies operating across major tax havens. Offshore A-Z exploits the inscrutability of such companies to speculate on their possible nature and intent. Each company listed on here is real, but the information surrounding these consist of both actual records, obtained by dmstfctn, and speculative images and mission statements, generated by algorithms.

Tax havens, or secrecy jurisdictions, employ laws and corporate regulations different from those of most jurisdictions, using secrecy as a prime tool. Furthermore, the agents operating offshore on behalf of clients elsewhere have been observed by dmstfctn to willfully introduce mistakes in the records held on the companies they help forming. (Offshore Investigation Vehicle)

When offshore companies are but a bundle of papers held in private storages, these practices contribute to a number of possible configurations of any given offshore company, whose records are at once factually correct and conveniently flawed.

Offshore A-Z plays with the idea that truth is not one nor static, and that it does not need to be upheld equally at all times or in all fora.

Obtaining the data

The data contained within Offshore A-Z comes from a number of sources. Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency. Employing data scraping techniques, dmstfctn extracted records on hundreds of thousands of companies appearing in a number of such registrars.

Yielding varying amounts of information, and naturally full of gaps - sometimes full company details and descriptions, sometimes little more than a name - the records were cross referenced with data from the ICIJ’s Offshore Leaks as well as Financial Secrecy Index scores from the Tax Justice Network, and compiled into a single searchable database.

Training the algorithms

Algorithms were then trained to fill in the gaps in information. Using keywords from the company’s records as a trigger, the algorithms associate images with each nondescript company and complete missing fields by guessing possible incorporation dates or by generating corporate mission statement via a simple neural network. The coherency and accuracy of the neural network is directly undermined by the opaque source material, or incomplete input records. Finally, companies previously named in the Offshore Leaks ( for example) are hyperlinked to the relevant entry on the ICIJ database, allowing user to investigate further.

Compiling the template

The resulting information is autonomously built into a Web 2.0 page, employing a visual grammar similar to that used by existing registrars of companies. However, under intense scrutiny, the template mealts away revealing warm hues and floating forms.

This cycle of actions is repeated for each unreleased company found in the database and publicly announced by a Twitter bot.

Zooming in

Among the companies listed on the Offshore A-Z, a few appearing to be embedded in complex offshore vehicles were further investigated, resulting in three stories focusing on the funding behind Leave.EU, the corporate tax-avoidance of Barclays and the colonial origins of HSBC.

Offshore A-Z is a project by dmstfctn.

LOPEZ LAW, ATTORNEYS AT LAW & COUNCELLERS

Company Name LOPEZ LAW, ATTORNEYS AT LAW & COUNCELLERS
Date of Registration 19th October 1998
Company Objective 1.     The exercise of legal practice by authorized persons under their personal professional and moreover taking into account all     The lawyers applicable provisions, in particular the provisions of the legislation in terms of the legal profession.
2. Goal the company also includes the provision of legal and financial advice in the broadest sense, including providing tax advice and representation of third parties in connection with these services; participate in or cooperate with law partnerships or partnerships of professionals with lawyers and participating in legal partnerships or other professionals with lawyers, the foregoing subject to compliance with all lawyers applicable provisions, in particular the provisions of the applicable law s in terms of the legal profession.
3.     The full or partial accrual of pension provisions for shareholders, former shareholders and / or their survivors.
4. represent     The, defending and promoting minority interests in both . the widest sense as more particularly:
a     the exercising management and supervisory functions to Aruba exempt companies other companies, regardless of the objects of which Aruba exempt companies and other companies;
b manage     the, investing and / or administering vermogensbestands- parts of any kind.; .
c     the acting as Agent, reign enter star or trustee, as well as acting as a legal representative of Aruba exempt companies; .
d     the observing the interests of shareholders, bondholders or other creditors of Aruba exempt companies and other companies or undertakings or groups thereof;
e.     the behalf of third parties in its name taking of movable and immovable property and the management and administration of those cases as well as mediation in the realization of all trades.
5.     The establishment of Aruba Exempt Companies and other companies and acting as an intermediary in the establishment of Aruba exempt companies and other companies regardless of the objects of those companies.
6.     The advice in the field of tourism in general and the provision of all that tourism is serving.
7.     The advising on and mediating in the purchase and sale, rental and leasing, administration, operation and leasing of real estate and any right or interest in property including but not limited to of on cooperative basis given use and / or enjoyment rights to property.
8.     The exercise of the brokerage in the broadest sense.
9.     The giving economic advice in general and in the field of marketing, public relations, advertising, sales, sales promotion, merchandising, market research, planning and project development.
10.     The participating in the management, purchase, sale, exchange, transfer, dispose of, issue and trading of shares and other securities in respect of, bonds, funds, promissory notes, debentures, notes and other debt securities, and other securities as well as so-called commodities.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
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