Paris and Berlin are pressing industrialised nations to pull together a common blacklist of territories that breach transparency standards, in the toughest government responses yet to the Panama Papers affair.
Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, and Michel Sapin, his French counterpart, also emphasised the need for sharing and publishing the names of the ultimate beneficiaries of all corporate structures, including shell companies, trusts and foundations that can offer anonymity to their users.
The German and French governments launched their plans in separate initiatives yesterday as Brussels prepares to announce proposals this week to force large EU-based companies to disclose their annual financial results on a country-by-country basis, including for offshore jurisdictions.