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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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.

PROSSIMA PIZZA N.V.

Company Name PROSSIMA PIZZA N.V.
Date of Registration 6th January 2001
Company Objective A. The exercise in its own name and for its own account of the Catering in the widest sense of the word;
b. in its own name and for its own account or operate a more cafe-restaurants, dance halls adjoining bars and / or fast food facilities;
c. the manufacture, sale and delivery of pizzas as well as the sale of beverages, aldan non alcoholic beverages and in general the pursuit of a so-called "take-away" in respect of the foregoing,.
e import and export, wholesale and retail, agencies, commission of foods, food, beverages or not alcoholic,.
f the sub a, b, c and e set will be needed as much subject to the conditions contained in the Regulation;.
g setting bail and other guarantees and ownership transfer whether in fiduciary or trust or mortgage, pledge or otherwise encumber assets, all this as security for the payment of the debts of the company and the debts of third parties, whether or not against contraprestatie;
h partial or total building retirement benefit of employees or former employees to the company and / or bun failed Relations.; a
i. acting as finance and mediating in the realization of financing of all types of transactions;
j. Company activities listed sub i can only perform as part of its ordinary activities - other than the significant degree which act as finance company - and in such a way that they are not as credit institutions as defined in the Ordinance Supervision Credit System can be considered;
k. participating imports, may support buying an interest in any particular way, or run over or perceive representation to the board of other companies, partnerships and legal persons, regardless of the target definition.
L. the performance of all work and all actions, which are related in the broadest sense of the foregoing, ensuing from or may be conducive thereto.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
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