The Tribune

A former financial services minister yesterday suggested that this nation sue to recover the $13 million in Companies Registry search fees owed by the international journalists’ group responsible for the ‘Bahamas papers leak’.

Ryan Pinder described the publication of 1.3 million documents from the Bahamas’ corporate registry back in September as “much ado about nothing”, suggesting that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) be sued for $13 million in retrieval fees.

The Graham Thompson & Company partner, while making a presentation at yesterday’s Accountant’s Week session, said: “They were only able to get consolidated information, publicly available information, such as the names of directors. It came from the Registrar General’s Department and it’s publicly available.”

Mr Pinder added: “The only problem is the ICIJ has 1.3 million documents, meaning at $10 a search they owe the Government of the Bahamas $13 million. I told the Attorney General we should sue them. They owe us $13 million for taking our information.

“Other than that it is much ado about nothing. There is no adverse affect on the business. I have not lost one client, and I was only asked about it for one day. It’s much ado about nothing, that’s all it is.”

The corporate registry ‘leak’ came five months after the country’s financial services sector was dragged into the spotlight as a so-called ‘tax haven’ in the infamous ‘Panama Papers’ leak.

In the Bahamas’ case, the ICIJ unveiled a free online database created from 1.3 million files from the Bahamas’ corporate registry. Its members circumvented the retrieval fee and incomplete online registry by providing a searchable forum of the directors, and some shareholders, of more than 175,000 Bahamian companies.