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A review by simonmee
Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Jake Bernstein
3.0
I badly wanted to love this book. I wanted to toot my digital trumpet and type EAT THE RICH, fortified with paragraphs of evidence of the nefarious dealings of the super wealthy...
...and to be fair, this book does deliver enough reasons to lay out the silverware. While there is no SPECTRE-like conspiracy, we read of a large number of grifters who coalesced to form a somewhat rickety, yet often successful, world of secrecy. Politicians in havens such as the British Virgin Islands, Niue, Delaware and Switzerland deliberately wrote laws with limited formation and disclosure obligations for companies. Other laws permitted bearer shares and hid the ownership of bank accounts. Lawyers identified such havens used them to the advantage of their clients. Bankers asked few questions as to the provenance of funds and valued obfuscation over transparency. Other grifters, including auctioneers of fine arts, dip in and out of narrative as they exploit advantages in information.
Unexpectedly, the inner workings felt less complicated than I expected. While you could argue their intention, the laws in the relevant havens are reasonably brazen in their effect. The legal firms churned out companies with pre-signed forms without any real intellectual input. Financiers laundered money with mirrored buy and sell trades that made little sense in isolation. Stories of incompetence abound, including an over sleeping employee tanking a bank's stocks, a lawyer who collected fees but failed to go through with renewing company registrations, and firms repeatedly frantically backdating documents to present a legitimate face to transactions.
Unfortunately, it is the multitude of stories that is the problem. A large number of threads line each chapter. There are aimply too many names, too many deals, too many ways the money was hidden for me to keep track. There are stories from those chasing the money (for both business and legal enforcement reasons). A large portion of the book is devoted to the collection of journalists trying to understand the information and collaborating on publishing it. Worst of all, there was no one single leak, and keeping track of who provided what ended up defeating me.
This book could have actually done with more pages, and a firmer grip on the narrative. At the risk of obscuring the global nature of the Panama Papers, it would have probably been worthwhile to focus on a smaller number of parties and develop the personalities involved. The author was actually good at humanising a number of characters but there were just too many.
This is a good book. But I wanted it to be great. 3 stars for spurning my love
...and to be fair, this book does deliver enough reasons to lay out the silverware. While there is no SPECTRE-like conspiracy, we read of a large number of grifters who coalesced to form a somewhat rickety, yet often successful, world of secrecy. Politicians in havens such as the British Virgin Islands, Niue, Delaware and Switzerland deliberately wrote laws with limited formation and disclosure obligations for companies. Other laws permitted bearer shares and hid the ownership of bank accounts. Lawyers identified such havens used them to the advantage of their clients. Bankers asked few questions as to the provenance of funds and valued obfuscation over transparency. Other grifters, including auctioneers of fine arts, dip in and out of narrative as they exploit advantages in information.
Unexpectedly, the inner workings felt less complicated than I expected. While you could argue their intention, the laws in the relevant havens are reasonably brazen in their effect. The legal firms churned out companies with pre-signed forms without any real intellectual input. Financiers laundered money with mirrored buy and sell trades that made little sense in isolation. Stories of incompetence abound, including an over sleeping employee tanking a bank's stocks, a lawyer who collected fees but failed to go through with renewing company registrations, and firms repeatedly frantically backdating documents to present a legitimate face to transactions.
Unfortunately, it is the multitude of stories that is the problem. A large number of threads line each chapter. There are aimply too many names, too many deals, too many ways the money was hidden for me to keep track. There are stories from those chasing the money (for both business and legal enforcement reasons). A large portion of the book is devoted to the collection of journalists trying to understand the information and collaborating on publishing it. Worst of all, there was no one single leak, and keeping track of who provided what ended up defeating me.
This book could have actually done with more pages, and a firmer grip on the narrative. At the risk of obscuring the global nature of the Panama Papers, it would have probably been worthwhile to focus on a smaller number of parties and develop the personalities involved. The author was actually good at humanising a number of characters but there were just too many.
This is a good book. But I wanted it to be great. 3 stars for spurning my love