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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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

OLIE ARUBA HOLDING A.V.V.

Company Name OLIE ARUBA HOLDING A.V.V.
Date of Registration 7th June 2008
Company Objective 1. The Corporation's object shall be:
a. to hold shares or other certificates of entitlement to a share;
b. to finance, whether or not within its group of companies, of other enterprises or corporations;
c. to invest assets, with the exception of real estate;
d. to license intellectual and indusu-ial property rights or rights of use under the laws of Aruba and under the laws of other countries;
and this with due observance of the provisions by or in pursuance of Article 2,letter d, of the State Ordinance Profits Tax.
2. The Corporation may not be active as a credit institution as meant in Article 1, Paragraph 1, of the State Ordinance Supervision Credit System.
3. The Corporation that meets as regards its enterprise the criteria of credit institution as meant in the State Ordinance Supervision Credit System, shall not be considered as such yet, if the corporation:
a. is a group financing company is meant in the State Decree Statute Publication Gazette 2000, No. 29, or any other exception laid down by State Decree for the implementation of the provisions by or pursuant to Article 1, paragraph 2, of the State Ordinance Supervision Credit
System;
b. is not considered as such by decision of the Central Bank of Aruba as meant in Article 1, paragraph 3, State Ordinance Supervision Credit System.
Except for exemption by the Central Bank of Aruba, tIle Corporation is explicitly prohibited from applying directly or indirectly to the public as regards the attraction of moneys in the ordinary course of its business, or as regards the granting of credits in the ordinary course of its business, or from acting as an intermediary in this matter in any form, and this with due observance of the provision in Article 48 of the State Ordinance Supervision Credit System.
4. The Corporation shall be authorized to do all that may be useful or necessary for
achieving its object, or that may be attaching or conducive to it in the broadest
sense of the word.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
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