Mossack, Fonseca & Co. (Bufete MF & Co.)

analysisA notarial deed of 22 September 2003, reprinted in the Official Bulletin of the Argentine province of Jujuy, describes Mossack Fonseca & Co. as a professional partnership of lawyers registered at Ficha C-003957 of the Common Persons section of Panama's Public Registry, acting as registered agent of a client company. A commercial registry-data service lists Bufete MF & Co. (MF Legal Services), a civil partnership at Persona Jurídica Folio 3957 (M) formed about 40 years ago, and another Panamanian newspaper gives ficha 3957 for Bufete MF & Co.; Panama's organised-crime prosecutors wrote in 2019, as a Panamanian news outlet quoted them, of 'the law firm Mossack Fonseca or Bufete MF&Co'. The two names are treated here as one partnership on the strength of that number and that wording, without a registry certificate. A commercial registry-data service shows ten related members, six active and four inactive; the names visible on its free page are Enrique Alfonso Cajiga Serracín, Ramón Fonseca Mora and two names cut short as 'JURGEN ...' and 'JOSETTE...', and it reports 111 organisations sharing officers with the partnership and no licences, sanctions or contracting bans in its regulatory sources; the free page does not say which members are active. ^{1 2 3}

analysisAccounts of the firm's origin differ. A local-history wiki and an online encyclopedia say that Jürgen Mossack started his own law practice in Panama in 1977 and that it became Mossack Fonseca in 1986, when Ramón Fonseca joined as partner (an online encyclopedia: through a merger with Fonseca's firm); another Panamanian newspaper reported that the two men constituted the partnership Mossack, Fonseca & Co before the Second Notary of Panama on 24 January 1986; a financial-crime law blog and a news outlet date the foundation by both men to 1977. No founding deed is retained. A news outlet reported in 2014 that the firm later added a third director, the Swiss lawyer Christoph Zollinger, whom the investigative journalism consortium described in 2026 as a former co-owner who had left years before the Panama Papers; neither press account dates his time at the firm. In their 2019 complaint against Netflix, Mossack and Fonseca stated that Bufete MF & Co. was a partnership wholly owned by the two of them as equal partners, and that Mossack Fonseca & Co, S.A. was a closely held corporation wholly owned by them as equal shareholders, both with their head office at Edificio Mossfon, Calle 54 Este, Panama City; the court summarised this as background and did not rule on it. ^{4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11}

analysisA January 2014 review of offshore service providers described Mossack & Fonseca as 'first and foremost, a law firm and not a pure offshore service provider', offering company formation through offices in about thirty jurisdictions together with nominee services, trusts, yacht registration and investment advice, and listed licences held by firm entities in the British Virgin Islands and an authorisation for trust company business in Jersey; those licences were not read in the regulators' own records. A Chilean investigative news outlet described the firm in 2016 as a global law firm based in Panama specialising in creating paper companies in tax havens. The approximate figures for its size come from secondary sources and the firm itself: an online encyclopedia describes a group of about 600 employees and 46 subsidiaries, from the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, Hong Kong, Switzerland, Jersey and Luxembourg to the U.S. states of Wyoming, Florida and Nevada; a news outlet reported affiliated offices in 44 countries in 2014; and the firm's own 2018 statement speaks of more than 40 countries and more than 600 staff. In their 2019 complaint against Netflix the founders described the two men, the law firm and the corporation together as 'MFGROUP', primarily engaged in forming and maintaining offshore companies, which it called 'products', for clients such as banks, law firms and accountants; they said they did not advise the end users to whom their clients sold these companies and kept compliance and due-diligence procedures as the law required. They added that the group had set up a compliance unit of twenty or more employees in El Salvador around 2014, rejected as false the claim that the firm or the corporation arranged shell-company cover for crime bosses and corrupt politicians, and said that, although targeted by two Panamanian cases for about four years, none of them had been convicted of any charged crime. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6}

analysisThe firm acted as agent of Mossack Fonseca Inc: a company-registry aggregator names it as the company's agent, and a separate commercial registry-data service's page shows it as resident agent of every company visible on the free page, linking it to 643 Panamanian companies. ^{7 8}

analysisFrom April 2016 about 11.5 million internal legal and financial documents of the firm, published mainly through ICIJ as the Panama Papers, became the basis of worldwide reporting on offshore companies; the documents themselves are not part of the retained evidence. The firm called itself the victim of a worldwide cyberattack and said that ICIJ, working from stolen information, had presented a mistaken picture of its services, and Ramón Fonseca said its network had been compromised by hackers in 2015. The investigative journalism consortium reported in June 2018, reading the firm's internal records from a second leak, that two months after it learned of the breach the firm still could not identify the owners of more than 70 percent of 28,500 active companies in the British Virgin Islands, its busiest offshore centre, or of 75 percent of 10,500 active shell companies in Panama. In March 2016 the firm had told the investigative journalism consortium that it conducted thorough due diligence on all new and prospective clients, often exceeding the rules that bound it. The same report described an audit by the Seychelles Financial Intelligence Unit which concluded that the firm's Seychelles office did not regularly monitor high-risk, politically connected clients and had breached six anti-money-laundering laws and regulations; the unit's director wrote of 'significant deficiencies'. These are the regulator's findings as reported from leaked records, and the audit report itself is not retained. For the June 2018 report Mossack and Fonseca did not answer the investigative journalism consortium's specific questions; that month the two lawyers issued a press release saying that the firm, its employees and its founders were 'never involved in unlawful acts'. ^{1 2 3}

analysisAn investigative nonprofit reported in May 2016 that the British Virgin Islands financial regulator had taken enforcement action against the firm and ordered it to appoint a qualified person to oversee its operations and report regularly; the regulator's notice is not retained. In Panama the register of sanctions of the Ministry of Economy and Finance records a 2018 fine of B/.300,000 on Bufete MF & Co for breaches of articles 26 to 29 and 34 of Law 23 of 2015 on the prevention of money laundering, of its implementing decrees and resolutions, and of articles 6, 7, 10, 11 and 18 of Law 2 of 2011 on resident agents; the register gives the provisions breached, not the facts found. ^{4 5}

analysisThe investigative journalism consortium reported, from a second leak of the firm's records, that the firm closed offices in the Isle of Man, Jersey and Hong Kong from May 2016, that later that year Fonseca and Mossack announced their retirement, and that an email to clients said a skeletal firm would remain for a few years to meet existing obligations before it would 'eventually wither away'. On 15 March 2018 a financial-crime law blog reported the firm's statement on closing its operations: it had reduced its offices and staff worldwide to fewer than 50 people and blamed reputational deterioration, the media campaign, a 'financial siege' and irregular actions by some Panamanian authorities. It said that no criminal proceedings had been opened against it for its company-formation service in any jurisdiction where it incorporated companies, that the only investigations were in Panama and that it had supplied all information requested. It would stop serving the public at the end of March 2018, after 40 years, while a small team kept answering the authorities. ^{1 2 3}

analysisAccording to the investigative journalism consortium, in Panama the firm transferred clients to Orbis Legal Services, which hired some of its employees to keep 'the same level of service', and in Samoa it became Central Corporate Services Ltd.; no registry record links Orbis to the firm. A commercial registry-data service lists Orbis Legal Services as a Panamanian civil partnership at Persona Jurídica Folio 25030457, formed about ten years ago, registered with the supervisor of non-financial entities as a law firm on 17 September 2021 and a member of the governing bodies of 393 organisations. The same register of sanctions records a 2018 fine on Orbis Legal Services of B/.5,000 plus a progressive fine of B/.200, B/.5,200 in total, for non-compliance with two resolutions of 2017 and an article of a 2018 resolution. ^{1 4 5}

analysisOn 15 October 2019 the firm, Mossack Fonseca & Co., S.A. and the two founders sued Netflix in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut (case 3:19-cv-01618) over the film The Laundromat, alleging libel, false-light invasion of privacy and dilution and false advertising of the firm's trademarked logo. Two days later Judge Janet Bond Arterton held that the court lacked personal jurisdiction and transferred the case to the Central District of California; the retained records do not show what happened after the transfer. ^{1 2}