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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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

PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS SERVICES ARUBA

Company Name PRICEWATERHOUSECOOPERS SERVICES ARUBA
Date of Registration 10th May 2015
Company Objective 1.-    to act as accountant, accountant-administration consultant and tax advisor and/or arranging for authorized persons to act as accountant, accountant-administration consultant and tax advisor, with due observance of all given rules or rules to be given with respect to this professional practice;
-    to practice or having practiced the profession of advisor in respect of and the provision of objective financial advice aimed at transactions (such as mergers and acquisitions, valuations), performance improvement (aimed at, among other things, management information, processes, information technology) and crisis management (such as forensic researches);
-    to act as a partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers Aruba Partnership, a partnership entered into under the laws of Aruba, and having its registered address at L.G. Smith Boulevard 62, Aruba ( the 'Partnership") and facilitate the business of the Partnership by contribution to the Partnership of capital and employment of private persons practicing the profession of accountant, tax advisor or consultant;
-    to participate in, finance or hold any other interest in, or to conduct the management of, other legal entities, partnerships or enterprises, and all to the extent that it doesn't conflict with the conditions contained in the State Ordinance on the Supervision of Trust Service Providers; and
-    to furnish guarantees, provide security, warrant performance or in any other way assume liability, whether jointly and severally or otherwise, for or in respect of obligations of Group Companies or other parties, and this in such a way that the company cannot be deemed a credit institution in the sense of the State Ordinance on the Supervision of the credit system.
2.    Within its objects, the company may perform any acts related to this object in the broadest sense, both for its own account and for account of third parties.
3.    the above-mentioned will be done to the extent permitted by and subject to the provisions of or pursuant to the relevant regulations.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
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