Analytics, Financial Services, Latvia, Legislation, Markets and Companies, Offshore

Re:Baltica said that the database of Panama's Mossack Fonseca law firm contains 15,951 entries concerning Latvia. The majority of the firm’s customers had accounts in Latvian banks serving non-residents, while Scandinavian Nordea bank operating also in Latvia actively sold offshore companies. Some of the beneficiaries and shareholders are citizens of Russia and CIS countries, while, according to Re:Baltica, the Panama Papers list ten Mossack Fonseca’s customers from Latvia, 1,380 Latvian companies, 21 beneficiaries and 81 shareholders from Latvia.

Re:Baltica said that the information about Ventspils Mayor Lembergs and his daughter Liga Lemberga had already been known from the court proceedings in a criminal case where the prosecutor’s office attempts to prove that Lembergs is the true beneficiary in a number of local companies, using offshore schemes.

Two offshore companies belong to businessman Ainars Gulbis. Directors in one of the companies, Farber & Associates, are his father and son, tennis player Ernests Gulbis. Gulbis explained to Re:Baltica that he had bought the offshore company in the mid-1990s when he felt unsafe about his own holdings, and the only task of this company has been to hold shares in SWH Group, but now the offshore company is being liquidated. Gulbis rejects the assumption that the offshore firms are in any way related with his son's sports career.

Also, Kirsons, the owner of Lido catering chain, had tried to retain control over his financially troubled company in 2010 by signing an agreement with three companies – Panama-registered Carcel Holdings, as well as Joyton International and Joondaloop Financial Corp registered in the Virgin Islands. Re:Baltica reminded that during the crisis, businessmen used such schemes to retain hold over valuable assets through fake offshore creditors to avoid payment of their real debts. Kirsons claims that he had been proposed to engage in doubtful solvency solutions, but he later had chosen a fair negotiation with the creditors.

Re:Baltica reported that services of Mossack Fonseca have been actively used by the new investor in Latvia’s airBaltic carrier Montag-Girmes. Three years ago he had three offshore companies – ARQ Aviation Limited, ARQ Investment Limited and ARQ Real Estate Holdings Limited. The companies had been established in 2008. In 2013, Montag-Girmes showed interest about closing down the companies. The documents discover the investor's activities in the Russian market, including in real estate.

About 11.5 million tax documents leaked from Panama's Mossack Fonseca law firm show that the company has been helping the world's wealthy politicians and celebrities to hide their assets from tax authorities.

The leaked documents contain information of secret offshore deals conducted by Russian President Vladimir Putin's aides, the world's political leaders and even sports stars like Argentine footballer Lionel Messi.

The German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung obtained these papers from an anonymous source and shared them with other media through the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).