In Norway, where the national wealth fund wasn’t named in the Panama papers, protesters held a rally outside its office anyway to call for an end of all tax havens.
The revelations also disrupted French Prime Minister Manuel Valls’s working trip to Algeria over the weekend. Reporters from two French media, newspaper Le Monde and broadcaster Canal+, were denied visas to accompany Valls because they reported on Algerian cabinet members caught up in the Panama affair. Other French media decided not to cover the trip in protest.
Some leaders have sought to put a positive spin. German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on ARD public television Sunday night that the divulgences are “helpful” in efforts against tax evasion and in spurring international efforts to create registers on international company ownership.
Societe Generale SA meanwhile confirmed that French police visited its offices last week to collect documents related to its offshore accounts revealed in the Panama Papers. In Paris, youths spray-painted a Societe Generale branch with slogans related to the revelations during a protest on Friday against a labor reform bill.
In Switzerland, prosecutors said the Mossack Fonseca documents contain new information relevant to their investigation into corruption at soccer’s world governing body FIFA. Also in Switzerland, police raided an art warehouse in Geneva after documents released as part of the Panama papers helped reveal the ownership of a disputed Amedeo Modigliani painting that had been stolen by the Nazis.
Former British Finance Minister Nigel Lawson said much of the public reaction has ignored the fact that offshore accounts are often not illegal and are useful in international trade, provided the correct taxes are paid.
“You wouldn’t have had the development of the so-called emerging world as rapidly as it has been if there had not been freedom of capital flows,” Lawson told the BBC on Sunday. “It’s done a great deal of good, and nobody in their right mind wants to unwind that. But there does need to be cooperation between tax authorities around the world.”