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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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

LA ROCA ICE

Company Name LA ROCA ICE
Date of Registration 30th January 2013
Company Objective 1. In particular, the continuation of the enterprise carried on as a sole proprietorship under the name "LA ROCA ICE '.
2 manufacture and trade, including the purchase, sale, import and export, and transit, wholesale , small, agenturen- commission and trading all kinds of ice cream, ice cubes and ice bars,.
3 for its own account and for third parties acting, including the purchase, sale, import and export, and transit, large -, small, agenturen- and commission trade of all eligible merchandise, and more particularly, but not limited to:
a all kinds of frozen and perishable, such as but not limited to, food, life and. foods, dairy products, meat and meat products, fish and fish products, fruits and vegetables, cheese, chocolate, ice cream for consumption or a similar product and / or food, grocery items, stimulants, bakery products;
b. all kinds of strong, weak alcoholic and / or non-alcoholic beverages;
c. in all types of refrigeration and electrical equipment, including but not limited to air conditioners, refrigeration and freezers, water cooling equipments, restaurant equipment, pneumatic equipment, hoods, mechanic articles and electrical materials, as well as designing, building or doing construction and advising in relation to refrigeration and electrical installations;
d. all kinds of chairs, tables, table clothes, decorations, plants, "chafing dishes", specifications and all other articles and resources needed for the benefit of parties, receptions, events and the like;
4. the exercise of an advertising, consulting and marketing agency;
5. giving advice in the field of marketing ( "marketing"), public relations, sales promotion ( "sales promotion"), and the placing on the market ( "merchandising"), market research ( "marketing research"), "benchmarking" planning and market management ( "marketing management") and advertising ( "advertising"), including but not limited to "indoor" and "outdoor" advertising in the broadest sense;
6. driving a graphic design in its broadest scope, including also the printing of all kinds of products and the manufacture of billboards and advertising systems;
7. designing, providing and selling ads and ad systems, and the preparation and supervision of promotion and management of advertising and promotional budgets for others;
8. the provision of services and the provision of all relevant organization, distribution, film production, film directing, communication, publicity, advertising, illustration, fine arts, creative, graphic and audiovisual design, advertising, photography and copywriting;
9. buy, sell, rent, lease, assemble and display of sound recordings, audiovisual programs, commercials and events of any nature;
10. arranging banquets, receptions, events, parties and the like as far as entertainment, personnel, food and beverage, as well as the performance of all aspects of a catering company;
11. hiring, under rent, lease, re-hiring of tables, chairs, table clothes, cutlery, crockery, "chafing dishes", decorations, plants, locations, and other items needed for the benefit of parties, receptions, events and the like, all in the broadest sense;
12. the manufacture, processing, processing and packaging of paragraph 2, paragraph 3 sub a and b, and paragraph 10 of this article reported;
13. in paragraph 2, paragraph 3 sub a and b, and paragraph 10 of this article will set out for much needed to be taken of the conditions contained in the Regulation and the Ordinance on distilleries;
14. the setting of bail and other guarantees, jointly and severally connect and transfer the ownership - 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 in return contraprestatie;
15. investing its assets in securities such as shares and other securities in respect of bonds and other interest-bearing debt, by whatever name and in whatever form;
16. directly or indirectly invest its assets in property and rights to acquire, possess, rent, lease, lease, lease, subdivide, drainage, develop, enhance, edit, cultivate, sell or otherwise dispose of, mortgage or otherwise encumber immovable business and the construction of infrastructure projects such as roads, pipelines and similar works on immovable property;
17. the benefit of management, staff, employees and / or former employees of the company or of its affiliates and / or closing their survivors to: standing right, annuity contracts and agreements of pension insurance with an insurer who is in possession of a authorization referred to in Article 5, first paragraph, of the State Ordinance supervision insurance;
18. building and ensuring pension in favor of - and making distributions to shareholders Directors of the Company or its affiliates, and their survivors;
19. acting as finance and mediating in the realization of financing of all types of transactions;
20. the company's activities under paragraph 19 may only carry out in such a way that they do not as a credit institution as defined in Article 1 paragraph 1 of the Ordinance Supervision Credit System can be considered. It is also expressly prohibited without exemption, to perform Banking transactions referred to in Article 48 of the Ordinance Supervision;
21. participating input, providing support on or is in any way interested in continuing, or carry it over or directors perceive the representation of other companies, partnerships and legal persons, regardless of the object clause;
22. 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.
23. the above will be made to the extent permitted by and subject to the provisions under or pursuant to the relevant laws.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
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