Paradise papers: US commerce chief denies wrongdoing

US media, citing leaked documents from an offshore law firm, said partnerships used by Wilbur Ross have a 31 percent stake in Navigator Holdings, which has significant ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.

Wilbur Ross says there was nothing improper about his investments in a shipping firm with significant ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.
Reuters

Wilbur Ross says there was nothing improper about his investments in a shipping firm with significant ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.

An international consortium of investigative journalists and media organisations have joined forces to release more than 13 million documents. 

US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross is named in the papers as having business links to Russians who are under US sanction. 

US media said partnerships used by Ross have a 31 percent stake in Navigator Holdings, which the New York Times said earns millions of dollars a year transporting gas for Russian petrochemical firm Sibur.

But, Ross says there was nothing improper about his investments in the shipping firm with significant ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin's inner circle.

"There is nothing wrong with anything that was done," Ross told CNBC, adding that he had not considered resigning following Sunday's report. Ross is a billionaire investor who is helping to shape Republican President Donald Trump's trade policy.

"There was disclosure, there is no impropriety and if people draw a contrary conclusion that's because the papers have twisted the story and made it into something that it's not there," Ross told the BBC.

TRT World's Amber Austin-Wright reports. 

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The documents also suggest that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's top fundraiser and senior advisor Stephen Bronfman, heir to the Seagram fortune, moved some $60 million to offshore tax havens with ex-senator Leo Kolber.

According to documents cited by the New York Times and BBC, the offshore legal services firm Appleby helped iPhone maker Apple Inc shift tens of billions of dollars from Ireland to the Channel Islands when it appeared to face a tougher stand on taxes by Dublin.

The report said Apple transferred funds to the small island of Jersey, which typically does not tax corporate income and is largely exempt from European Union tax regulations.

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Bono among figures named

The leaked papers also suggest U2 frontman Bono used a company based in low-tax Malta to buy part of a shopping mall in Lithuania.

Bono's spokesperson told the paper that the rocker, whose real name is Paul Hewson, was a "passive minority investor in Nude Estates Malta Ltd., a company that was legally registered in Malta until it was voluntarily wound up in 2015."

Bono was "extremely distressed if even as a passive minority investor... anything less than exemplary was done with my name anywhere near it", he said in a statement obtained by the BBC and The Guardian.

The singer said he had been "assured by those running the company that it is fully tax compliant", they reported. 

"The fact is, I welcome this reporting," he added, calling for public registries in offshore tax centres.

The Irish band, well known for its poverty-fighting efforts, has faced past criticism over its tax arrangements.

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