Mark Pieth, Swiss anti-corruption expert, and Joseph Stiglitz joined a seven-member commission whose aim is to investigate Panama’s immensely opaque financial system, but both quit the group on Friday, saying that the country’s government refused to guarantee the committee’s report would be made public. The Panamanian government defended the committee’s “autonomous” management in a statement and it said the resignations of Stiglitz and Pieth were due to unspecified “internal differences”.

In New York on June 4 and 5 during the first full meeting of the investigative committee, the members agreed that the Panamanian government needed to commit to making the final report public, regardless of its findings, Stiglitz and Pieth said. But they received a government letter alst week that drew back from its commitment to making the findings public.

“We can only infer that the government is facing pressure from those who are making profits from the current non-transparent financial system in Panama,” Stiglitz said.
The Panama Papers cover a period from 1977 to December 2015, and show that some companies set up in tax havens may have been used for money laundering, arms and drug deals, as well as tax evasion.

“I have had a close look at the so called Panama Papers and I must admit that, even as an expert on economic and organised crime, I was amazed to see so much of what we talk about in theory was confirmed in practice,” Pieth said.

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The “Panama Papers” consist of more than 11.5m documents from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca which were leaked in April and contain detailed financial information from offshore accounts and potential tax evasion by the rich and powerful.