Beyond the Pandora Papers – a question about trust

The Pandora Papers, a new investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), has fuelled outrage around the world. Politicians, businesspeople, sports stars, and cultural icons have been caught in the act of hiding their wealth and lying about it. But how likely is a reckoning for the lawyers and accountants who helped them? There is nothing new about the practices the ICIJ’s investigation uncovered.

True, the sheer scale, sophistication, and legal fire power deployed to allow today’s ultra-rich and powerful to game the law may be newsworthy.

But the only truly shocking revelation is that it took more than 600 journalists from around the world to expose these practices, often risking their own safety and professional futures. The difficulty of that task attests to how well lawyers, legislatures, and courts have tilted the law in favour of elites.