"I also wish that the OECD was convened so that the same decision would be taken by all the countries concerned. At that point, Panama will not scare anyone," Sapin said in an interview with France’s Europe 1 radio.
His call came after German media exposed on Sunday the alleged involvement of multiple former and current world leaders in offshore schemes by publishing materials it claims came from Mossack Fonseca, a Panama firm that specializes in selling offshore companies.
Although owning an offshore company is not illegal and may be done for legitimate reasons, including safety and avoiding abuse, the authors of the so-called Panama Papers claim to shed light on the scale of global secrecy and tax avoidance.
In Monday’s statement following the leak, the OECD said 132 jurisdictions have committed to the standard on the exchange of information "on request," 96 of which planned to introduce automatic exchange of financial account information in the next two years.
The 34-member Paris-based institution that includes mostly EU members and the United States has no jurisdictions on its list of uncooperative tax havens after removing Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco in 2009.
Mossack Fonseca refused to verify the information contained in the leaks. It has accused reporters of gaining unauthorized access to its documents and warned that using unlawfully-obtained data was a crime that it would not hesitate to pursue through the courts.
