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 Prior to the Offshore Leaks, the snippets of information available on offshore companies were largely confined to the outdated online registrars kept by tax havens, as an empty gesture towards transparency.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

STEPPING STONE REALTY

Company Name STEPPING STONE REALTY
Date of Registration 22nd September 2015
Company Objective 1.A. to acquire, possess, alienate, manage, develop, rent, rent out, sublet, develop personal property and real estate as well as to acquire, possess, and manage rights and interests related to personal property and real estate;
b. to invest its assets in securities, such as shares and other certificates of participation, bonds as well as in other interest bearing claims under whatever name an in whatever form;
c. to grant mortgage on or otherwise create security on personal property and real estate and on the rights and interests related thereto, such that the company may only carry out these activities within the framework of its normal business operations, not being a credit company in such a great extent and in such a way that it cannot be deemed a credit institution as referred to in the State Ordinance on the Supervision of the Credit System;
d. to advise and mediate with regard to transactions in personal property and real estate;
e. to hire, let, sublet encumber and/or pledge or otherwise establish security interests in registered properties or related to the rights and interests thereof, all this as security for the payment of the company's own debts and the debts of third parties, whether or not against a consideration;
f. to trade registered properties, to act as an intermediary in and to give advise concerning transactions in registered properties;
g. to possess, maintain, develop and to give advise to the development of, manage, alienate, encumber, record (or arrange by third parties to record), build, furnish, decorate and improve ondominiums, bungalows, apartments and other guest accomodations, shops, shopping malls, hairdressing salons, laundries and suchlike;
h. to provide administrative, maintenance, security and related services for buildings and building complexes in Aruba; as long as these administrative services are not considered activities that are- legally the exclusive domain of (certified public) accountants registeraccount) and/or administrative consultants and/or similar professionals;
i. to act as a finance company and to mediate in the arrangement of the financing of all kinds of transactions such that the company may only carry out these activities within the framework of its normal business operations, not being a credit company in such a great extent and in such a way that it cannot be deemed a credit institution as referred to in the State Ordinance on the Supervision of the Credit System; it is also prohibited from attracting funds from the public and/or loaning funds to the public;
j. to carry out all activities and perform all acts that are related to the above, arise from it or are conductive to it.
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 abovementioned activities shall take place insofar as allowed by and with due observance of all applicable laws that may apply in this regard.
4. An ultra vires action shall be excluded.
Country
aruba
Financial Secrecy Index [more info] 68
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