It was late afternoon when Tom Barton’s phone rang: it was a text from Liam Clancy announcing they were nearing Panama City. Barton replied informing him he would be waiting at the Casablanca bar on the corner of plaza Bolivar in Casco Viejo. He had rented a studio appartment for Liam in what was once the Hotel Colombia and where he himself was staying.
Barton had been engrossed watching CNN News as anchorman announced Vladimir Putin had signed an agreement with Cyprus, that gave Russian navy ships access to the island’s ports, an information did not bode well for the future, as the deal coincided with a new flare up of tensions in the Ukraine. Russian interests in Cyprus, an EU country, had continued to grow and the very thought of Russian air bases on the island was enough to send leaders in Berlin, London or Paris into a fit of shivers.
The Hotel Colombia had started out as the Colonial. It was built in 1937 by a Peruvian architect Leonardo Villanueva together with Viktor Tejeira. Villanueva, it is said, was inspired by a visit he made to Seville in 1925, designing the edifice in an extravagant mixture Neocolonial and Andalusian styles.
At the time it opened it was certainly the best hotel in Casco Viejo, the historic centre of Panama City, though in more recent times it fell into a state of serious neglect and disrepair before it being finally renovated and transformed into private apartments.
The Casco Viejo was undergoing a vast renovation programme with most of its historic monuments and buildings being restored to their past glory and its fine homes transformed in luxury apartments or hotels. In spite of that, a good number of ancient appartment houses, for lack of money, remained grim slums: homes for the very poor.
What surprised Barton on his arrival in the old town were the many façades and their barred windows looking onto empty weed strewn plots, the interiors razed, waiting for investors. He guessed Panama’s Casco Viejo was ten or more years behind Cartagena de los Indias in its transformation into a tourist centre.
On the days cruise ship docked at Colon, day-trippers flooded into the old town on flash tours. ‘We did Panama’ with brief pauses at the city’s splendid colonial churches and history museum. It seemed to Barton few visitors bothered to spend more than fifteen minutes or half and hour at what was as extraordinarily rich and interesting presentation of Central American history and Spain’s Colonial Empire.
But who was he to judge, his interests were different, he had more time, as had many, often more cultivated individual travellers. Day-trippers had just sufficient time for a perusary glance, lunch and a few photos to mark their passage.
From his appartment Barton had no further to go for dinner than the elegant Casablanca, which had nothing in common with the Moroccan city in style or cuisine, apart from the shared Spanish name. It was situated on one corner of the Hotel Colombia, facing the cathedral on the opposite side of Plaza Bolivar. The Casablanca was a first class restaurant with a valet parking service for those who drove in from their skyscraper condos in Punta Patilla or Boca La Caja.
It took a little time for Barton to put his finger on that something which was missing in Casco Viejo: ambiance. It had no soul … yet. Everything was new. The recently restored buildings of the old town, some dating back centuries, that housed hotels, boutiques, coffee shops, apartments and museums, were owned, rented or staffed by strangers to the old town..
The poor had been evicted, or were hidden out of sight in the Old Town’s more dismal side streets. They were so poor and shunned it was difficult to comprehend how they had been forgotten in the flurry of restoration. They represented the worst face of Central American capitalism, beyond the pale, beyond Thomas Piketty’s reckoning.
After four hundred years of colonisation and one hundred years of North American domination, the Panama’s economic and social system resembled to a certain degree those of its Central American neighbours, with wealth and power held by a privileged few. Leaders such as Castro, Chavez and Morales had started out with the intention of reforming their countries, by turning to socialism, others had chosen an authoritarian path, but neither had produced notable material improvement for the very poor.
Viejo Casco, the old town, was much smaller than Cartagena’s Casco Antiguo. In fact it was just one tenth of Cartagena’s three thousand five hectares and its population proportionally even smaller. After Barton’s calculation its monuments, hotels, restaurants and shops would always be second to Colombian city as a tourist attraction.
It was late the same evening when Pat arrived in Panama. His presence had become more urgent given Barton’s sudden disappearance. What was Barton’s role in the City & Colonial takeover? Was there something that he should know?
He had spent most of his time on the London to Miami leg pouring over the old maps of Central America he had bought on Charing Cross Road and reading the history of the Spanish conquest of Mexico. From Miami he slept a little and as the flight approached Panama City he awoke feeling refreshed, in spite of the long journey. Whatever the comforts offered by first class travel, flying was tiring and Pat was always pleased to escape the confinement of the airport on arrival.
Jose Laborda, head of the law firm that managed INI’s business in Panama, met Kennedy and accompanied him to the Intercontinental, situated in the down-town area of the city on avenida Balboa overlooking Panama Bay and the Pacific. A flurry of flunkies guided them to Kennedy’s suite high up in the hotel. There, Laborda pointed to the west and Casco Viejo, the old town, though suggesting Pat put off any visit he planned until the next day, tactfully warning him of the dangers of getting lost in Panama City in the late evening.
Laborda wished Kennedy a good evening when Pat excused himself, feigning fatigue and confirming their meeting the next morning at the lawyer’s offices.
As soon he arranged his affairs and took a shower Kennedy descended to explore the hotel’s immediate surroundings. His memories of Mexico and the Caribbean fifteen years earlier made him a little wary. A quick reconnaissance confirmed his initial impression of Panama, that is one of surprise, in a certain manner of speaking the skyline was not that different to that of Hong Kong’s or Shanghai’s. The people on the streets were in a manner of speaking not unlike to those of Canton, though fewer, nothing could beat China’s multitudes, except for India he had been told, a country he had assiduously avoided though he had pleasant memories of nearby Sri Lanka..
Where did the money come from? Kennedy asked himself. It was not as if he did not know, but he couldn’t help marvelling at the result. Panama and places like it were the end recipients of a constant flow of money from every corner of the planet, that is anywhere where where money was to be made: money that passed through the net escaping all forms of governmental control and taxation.
Channelling money to offshore financial centres was an integral part of INI’s business, and others like it, twenty four hours a day, every day, year in year out. Kennedy was attracted by the idea that anyone with a bit of money could escape what the Panamanians called the frivolities of British or European governments in matters of taxation. Investors, if that’s what they could be called, could even obtain a Panamanian citizenship, and those with substantially more money at their disposition, as in his own specific case, could if they wished live like a legendary South American dictator.
When it came to money Pat was not immoral he was simply amoral. Moral considerations simply did not exist in his universe, though it was wise to avoid the sanctions of the law, as he had already learnt. Beyond that it was as the Romans put it pecunia non olet.
*
At the same precisely the same moment Pat Kennedy disembarked at Tocumen International Airport, thirty kilometres to the west, Liam Clancy arrived at the Albrook Bus Terminal in Panama City. Kennedy had travelled Champagne class from London, some ten thousand kilometres distant, whilst Liam, with his newly found girlfriend, spent about the same time to cover the distance from Bocas, about three hundred kilometres to the west of Panama City. The difference was the young couple had made the journey in the cramped back seat of a bus, above the motor with the heat and noise that went with it. Luckily for them they were spared the odours of the toilet, an arm’s length from Liam: it was locked … Fuera de Servicio … Out of Order.
Liam was was almost oblivious to the discomfort with Gisela by his side and as the hours passed he found himself more and more captivated by her presence, which did not prevent the journey from being exhausting.
On their arrival at the Albrook bus station, he showed the address of the Plaza Bolivar appartment to the taxi driver who feigned ignorance in the hope he could extract an extortionate price from the young gringo, but when Liam questioned him in fluent Spanish he demurred, announcing a lower price though largely above the going rate. Liam was too weary to argue and nodded okay.
Ten minutes later they pulled up in front of the Casablanca, like two adventurers newly arrived from the wilds, where they were warmly greeted by an astonished Tom Barton who presented them to Ariel Romeo, the owner of the apartment booked for them, who had the concierge take their bags as he pointed the way to the entrance of the grand ochre coloured edifice. The spacious apartment was situated on the third floor and was decorated and furnished in a forties style which corresponded with the Colombia Hotel’s period of past glory. From the window of the main room they had a splendid view overlooking plaza Bolivar and the pavement terraces of cafés below.
After showing them around Ariel handed over the keys, wished them an enjoyable stay and left. Gisela threw open the windows to admire the view, she was delighted. Then after freshening up they joined Tom Barton who was waiting at the Casablanca’s bar.
Wanting to stretch their legs after their long day in the bus they could only agreed to Barton’s suggestion for a short walk before diner in a restaurant nearby the French Embassy two or three cuadras from the Hotel Colombia. The restaurant was modern and stylish with a terrace overlooking a small square. Barton recommended a gourmet menu: a dozen dishes of selected local specialities, served with first class red and white wines. He calmed their fears, reassuring them that each dish was no more than a couple mouthfuls. The first was beef marrow and confit d’oignon followed by ceviche, a delicious local dish of marinated raw fish in a mixture lemon juice, garlic, red onions and spices.
As the plates followed they relaxed, observing the flow of Panamanians arriving in the square in an almost constant stream of large upmarket SUVs, for whom a dinner of a few hundred dollars was nothing, an uneasy contrast with the scene they had passed a block or two away in the dark side streets, where poor families squatted outside of their wretchedly cramped dwellings, the smell of their simple evening meals wafting into the evening air, the women watching over their tiny charcoal stoves in the narrow doorways of their pathetic homes, whilst the men sat in resigned silence on the curbstones outside watching their small children play.
A couple of days earlier Barton had happened on the scene, a constant reminder to him of life’s inequalities, realizing he was first in line on the bench of the accused. But there was little he could do except promote employment by investing his gains in productive industry.
On returning to their appartment Liam checked his mail and to his surprise discovered a message from Pat Kennedy announcing he had already arrived in Panama City. With a quick call they agreed to meet the next day for lunch, which would leave them time to settle in. Liam gladly accepted Pat’s suggestion they all get together around midday, and sensing he wanted explore, he proposed the Casco Viejo and what better meeting point than the Casablanca.
*
The next morning Liam was up early and whispered to Gisela he would slip out to find something for breakfast. Below, on the plaza, he discovered everything that Bocas was not: a beautiful, colourful, newly restored colonial city. A waiter at the pavement bar pointed the way and a couple of moments later he found a small twenty four hour store run by a Chinese family, as were many such stores in Panama, just a cuadra from the plaza, where he bought juice, milk, bread and eggs.
Liam served the breakfast on the colonnaded balcony which offered a magnificent view of the cathedral across the plaza, in the centre of which stood a statue of Simon Bolivar, Latin America’s liberator and hero, benignly watching over the passers-by.
It was just after twelve when Liam spotted the unmistakable figure of Pat Kennedy below, already fitted out with a Panama, stepping out of a taxi on the south corner of the plaza, bringing to mind a vision of Graham Greene’s tailor, James Wormold.
A couple of minutes later they were below waving to Pat as he was about to disappear down one of the calles that formed a cross road on the corner of the plaza next to the Casablanca.
“Pat, how are you, this is Gisela, a friend.”
“Great,” replied Pat beaming with pleasure, clearly approving the young woman, who emanated an image of health and beauty.
“A fine place,” said Pat with a wave of his arm towards the plaza.
“Absolutely, we have a place up there said Liam pointing up to the Colombia, Tom fixed it up for us.”
“Excellent. Have you had a chance to look around,” asked Pat.
“No, we just got here yesterday, like you. We had diner with Tom yesterday and he’ll join us for lunch. I just have to call him when we’ve decided where to go.”
“Excellent, tell me everything,” said Kennedy, delighted Liam had linked-up with Barton.
They headed towards the south corner and soon found themselves on the square where they had dined the previous evening. The square was dominated by a statue of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the ill fated pioneer of the Panama Canal, whose gigantic construction project ended in bitter failure.
An hour later they were back at the Casablanca enjoying cold beers beneath a parasol.
“Zum wohl!” said Pat pleased to practice his German.
“Zum wohl!” replied Gisela politely.
“¡Salud!” added Liam.
They all laughed.
“So what are your plans now Liam?”
“Well I’m enjoying the break.”
“It looks like it,” said Pat glancing towards Gisela.
“After here we’re stopping off in Cartagena in Colombia. Tom Barton is going to be there … it seems he’s developing something new.”
“I see. A lot of things have happened over the last weeks!”
Liam nodded, it was not his position to comment on the high level manoeuvres in the bank.
‘We’ll have to be patient, but everything will be straightened out in London shortly. Michael has plans.”
“It sounds good.”
“Yes. He’s working on a new plan. That’s between us.”
“Of course, and Hong Kong, if you don’t mind me asking.”
“Nothing to worry about there Liam, you’ll be fine.”
Liam felt embarrassed at being so easy to read.
“The future is looking good for us,” he said with a conspirational laugh.
That was certain thought Liam, especially for Pat, it was no secret Kennedy was a very rich man.
“How long will you be staying in Panama?”
“I’m not sure for the moment, but I’ve a couple of meetings here with Jose Laborda, he’s our lawyer here, you’ll meet him tomorrow. Then to be honest I was hoping to get together with Tom. Then I have something to see in Nicaragua.”
“Nicaragua?”
“Yes, ‘ replied Kennedy with a conspirational wink.
The waiter appeared and Liam explained in rapid Spanish they were waiting for a friend.
“I forgot you were fluent in Spanish.”
“Yes, thanks to the Irish Union.”
“Irish Union?”
Liam laughed.
“Yes, in 2008, when I was laid me off, there was nothing doing in Ireland, so I sold my pad in Dublin and headed for Spain.”
“Yes, of course,” replied Kennedy having forgotten Liam’s story.
“Set up a consulting business. It’s still going. Actually business has picked up quite a bit.”
“So I’ve heard,” said Kennedy remembering the details.
“Look here’s Tom now,” said Liam standing up.
Pat greeted Tom like an old friend he hadn’t seen in years. They ordered drinks and exchanged news. Tom explaining his presence in Colombia, uneasily justifying it with a story of investment opportunities. He carefully omitted Lola from his story, unsure of how he could explain she was just twenty years old, and especially in the presence of Liam Clancy’s new girlfriend.
Pat spoke of Hong Kong, Lili, Lily Rose and their visit to London. Liam enthused about Bocas and Gisela listened, surprised at the sudden change in her plans. Barely a week before she was bumming it with her surfer friends on the beach of a tropical island, and now she was sitting in a smart restaurant in Panama City with three British bankers, one of whom she had developed more than a little passing interest in.
*
Pat Kennedy’s morning had not been wasted. He had risen early for a meeting with Jose Laborda, whose family’s connection with Fitzwilliams’ bank went back to the sixties when his father had been introduced to David Castlemain’s father by a mutual friend, Malcolm Smeaton.
During the fifty years that followed the law firm had supplied legal, financial and consultancy services to the Irish bank and its Caribbean emanation. Beside the usual legal advice relating to contracts, purchases and real estate transactions, the firm provided more specialised services of which there was an ever growing demand: the creation of Panamanian and offshore companies for foreign businesses or individuals, the setting up of private foundations, the opening of all types of offshore bank accounts, questions relating to trademark and patent registration, copyrights and last but not least immigration. The latter concerned the obtention of permits or visas for the entry and sojourn of foreigners in Panama, and procedures related to the acquisition of Panamanian citizenship.
Panama had enjoyed a privileged position in Central America for more than one hundred years, the transoceanic canal was not only of vital importance to Washington, but a vital point of passage for worldwide shipping. Then, in more recent times, Panama City had become an important hub for air travel between North and South America with in addition daily connections to Europe and Asia.
Laborda’s was a family law firm, just one of the many law firms in Panama City, but smaller than the larger better known providers of legal and trust services such as Morgan and Morgan, and Mossack Fonseca. It offered a more personalised service to its clients in a country where discretion was a way of life.
Panamanian providers of legal and trust services, together with their branches throughout the Caribbean, made it easy for their clients to set up offshore bank accounts or shell companies, without public disclosure of ownership and the real directors, in any one of a number of tax havens including the British Virgin Islands, home to about forty percent of the world’s offshore companies.
For more demanding clients they proposed shadowy offshore islands such as Niue, a tiny South Pacific island nation with a population of fewer than two thousand, which offered registration for certain Chinese and Russian clients.
Some of the world’s biggest financial institutions, including HSBC, City & Colonial, Société Générale, Credit Suisse, UBS, and Commerzbank, had aided clients set up complex structures via Panama, to hide money from their respective country’s tax collectors and government authorities. Nominee directors, that is standin directors, hid the identity of the real owners of bank accounts held by anonymous offshore companies, which together with the laws of secrecy in the different jurisdictions made it hard if not impossible for authorities to track down the real owners.
Amongst the entities establish in Panama were foundations, initially listed as non-profit making organisations, declaring for example the World Wildlife Fund as a beneficiary, a detail that could be changed without the least formality.
Pat had taken the precaution of walking to Laborda’s office, situated in an office tower in Riu Plaza, off Avenida Cruz Herrera, a short, but sticky, ten minutes on foot from the Intercontinental. He had learnt one could never be too careful when it came to the bank’s business in cities like Panama, a pole of attraction for sensation seeking media investigators.
Pat’s concerns, mostly related to his Chinese clients, were discussed directly with Laborda in a business like manner. It was a serious, to the point, meeting without time for the normal niceties of international business. Towards eleven thirty the discussions concluded Laborda’s chauffeur drove Kennedy to Casco Viejo where he dropped him off a couple of blocks from Plaza Bolivar.
Two weeks had passed since City & Colonial grab when Pat and Lili Kennedy flew into London. It was late January and bitterly cold compared to the spring like weather in Hong Kong. On arrival at their London home on Cheney Walk early that Sunday morning they found it glowing with warmth and once settled in they enjoyed a light lunch prepared by Pat’s faithful Irish housekeeper.
Their immediate plan was to relax, take a walk, perhaps over the Albert Bridge to Battersea Park or around Chelsea, before contemplating the week ahead with their lawyers on the subject of INI and its holdings in the different banking companies nominally under the control of City & Colonial.
Michael Fitzwilliams would of course not be there, but he had agreed to meet with them the next evening at a restaurant in the West End. Pat had spoken with Fitzwilliams over the phone; the tone was conciliatory, they had both had time to absorb the shock of the changes in London and now was the time to fight back.
John Francis provided moral support for Fitzwilliams and the banker’s lawyer, James Herring, set about the thorny question concerning the legality of the Bank of England’s role in the affair. The B of E’s role was, theoretically, a consultative one, it was not a commercial bank, and its control of markets and credit covered just a small percentage of all business.
In reality the state no longer controlled the issuance of credit. The fact was, commercial banks, credit companies and the shadow banking system had broken free. The question for government was how to rein in the system, without upsetting its natural equilibrium and at the same time circumventing the interests of the establishment’s chums.
Perhaps banks had become to big to fail, but that did not permit the government to play monopoly whenever they deemed it politically expedient, as it had done with INI to avoid upsetting their forthcoming re-election strategy. The question Fitzwilliams posed concerned the legality the motives behind the government forcing him to surrender control of the bank, causing the disintegration of a viable, though momentarily embarrassed institution.
Arguments pointing to the British banking crisis of 2008, when uncontrolled credit had been the principal cause of the collapse, was not sufficient. The British banking system had neither been threatened by the difficulties of INI, nor its links with InterBank in Moscow.
John Francis was not in the least surprised by the chaotic management by Downing Street. Governments across Europe were losing their marbles, as he put it, one only had to look at their and the ECB’s hastily cobbled together plans to measure the consequences: austerity and unemployment.
Re-election was all that counted, which meant that any governments which did not meet the aspirations of its electorate: prosperity, employment, the defence of their traditions and values, would be swiftly voted out of power.
Historically dominant parties, unable to satisfy the demands of the electorate, would find themselves replaced by populists who promised change. The problem was populist parties offered radical solutions, regardless of their tendencies: extreme right or left, or the surreal semi-mystical imaginings of certain ecologists movements. In simple terms they were demagogues, the forerunners of the kind of leaders that led to disaster in the 1930s.
Francis, and many others, believed human society had reached a critical point in its development, where changing one government for another similar government had little or no consequential effect on human development.
The days when a nation thought it could solve its problems by exporting more, or devaluing its currency were past. Globalisation and technology caused information to flow at Internet speed, ideas being communicated from one country to another in the blink of a politician’s eye. The man in the street was instantly informed of the latest national or international news, be it a terrorist attack, a dramatic fall on financial markets, the shooting down of an airliner, a political scandal, whatever. Politicians were out of touch, slow to react, and many voters saw them as obsolete and with superannuated ideas.
Francis like many economists had long realized the world had changed beyond all previous imaginings. A new era had dawned, one that scientists had baptised the anthropocene. An era where the human species had reached a point in its inexorable expansion where man ruled the earth, and his needs and desires went beyond the capacity of any politician to understand.
*
The London based INI Banking Corporation, was in effect a holding company, and as such it held shares in a collection of banks and financial undertakings, in the UK and overseas. It managed a bevy of hedge funds, held bonds and other securities, and owned fixed assets such as property, as well as trademarks, brand names and licences.
Its principle interests were in the different banks that formed the group notably INB (Irish Netherlands Bank) Ltd, in which it held a majority stake, as well as its private and investment banking units, overseas banks - in Dublin, Amsterdam and Hong Kong. As for InterBank, Moscow, its shares were held in an INI Luxembourg registered holding company.
The holding company was based in the Gould INI Tower in the City of London, where it managed its investments. The UK retail bank, INB Ltd., and the private and investment banking units were also headquartered at the same address.
In 2010, the logic of creating a link with Russia, with its enormous natural resources - the development of which called for financing on a vast scale, had made good sense.
It been a unique opportunity and the two banks, INB and InterBank, seized it, forming a partnership via a vehicle created for that sole purpose, the Luxembourg holding company, in which each bank was represented by its respective CEO. Fitzwilliams and Tarasov were each attributed twenty percent of the shares in the INI Banking Corporation (Luxembourg) LLC, and the remaining sixty percent held in equal parts by their respective banks in London and Moscow.
They had been encouraged by the Kremlin’s movers who believed it would forward their ambitious plan to transform Moscow into a banking centre and an international finance hub.
The existence of a Memorandum of Understanding between financial authorities in Moscow and Luxembourg, laying out the terms of a know-how sharing agreement between the two countries, had encouraged more than three thousand Russians, specialists in banking, finance and related services, to set up residence in the Grand Duchy, which was effectively one of the EU’s principal offshore banking hubs, with its tradition of banking secrecy and its cross-border financial expertise.
About that time, the all powerful Russian giant Gazprom established a bank in Luxembourg. The Bank GPB International SA, offered corporate banking, investment banking and asset management services. It was not alone, as other vehicles owned by major Russian businesses were already established there to facilitate the movement of the oligarchy’s capital.
In this way INI Luxembourg and its Dublin counterpart managed bond issues for Russian energy producers, including Yakutneft, earning substantial commissions in process.
*
The in vogue economist Thomas Piketty wrote: ‘Inequality as such is not necessarily a bad thing, the central question is to know if it is justified, if it has its reasons.’
John Francis, as an economist and historian, saw the Fitzwilliams’ family wealth as justified, they had worked honestly for close to a century to build their bank. The same could not be said for Russian oligarchs, including Tarasov, who had acquired vast wealth by chance, in the opportunistic chaos that reigned in post-Soviet Russia and the collapse of its financial institutions. Once a semblance of order had returned, under the leadership of Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, the fortunes of the nascent oligarchs exploded, thanks to a system of cronyism and corruption - to the detrime