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Welcome to ICIJ’s weekly newsletter!
Two court cases caught our attention last week, divided by the Atlantic Ocean but united by key themes: both are tied to ICIJ investigations, and both raise questions about the vexed relationships between governments and whistleblowers.
In Lisbon, a court delayed the verdict in the trial of Rui Pinto, the source of the Luanda Leaks dataset that revealed corruption and financial crime in Angola, and Football Leaks, a separate exposé that rocked the global soccer industry. Pinto may be pardoned later this month as part of an amnesty program but his years-long ordeal in the Portuguese courts is likely to drag on as he faces hundreds of fresh charges from authorities and the prospect of another trial. Throughout, Pinto has maintained he is a whistleblower who shared confidential documents with journalists in the public interest.
Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., a person claiming to be the whistleblower behind the Panama Papers is trying to anonymously sue the German government and federal criminal police. The plaintiff has accused Berlin of reneging on a deal to pay them 10% of revenue, over a 50 million euro threshold, recouped from investigations into financial crimes based on the Panama Papers dataset, which Germany purchased in 2017.
The court filings allege previously unreported information about the whistleblower’s thorny negotiations with the German authorities for compensation and protection in the aftermath of the 2016 investigation, which exposed the secret offshore holdings of world leaders, celebrities, criminals and more.
Jennifer Gibson of The Signals Network, an international whistleblower support organization, said that if the complaint is accurate, the German government’s system to pay whistleblowers is ad hoc and lacks the formal protections of the U.S. equivalent.
“Germany should decide — does it want to run a whistleblower reward program or not?” she said. “If it does, then it should set up a transparent, formalized system that protects whistleblowers and prevents the type of backroom deals that allegedly occurred in this case.” Read more here.
UBER FILES INQUIRY
One year after the Uber Files, a French parliamentary inquiry triggered by the global investigation has released its findings. The report confirms revelations from ICIJ, The Guardian and others, painting a damning picture of Uber’s early business practices, its failure to honor job-creation promises, and the ride-hailing giant’s close ties with French powerbrokers.
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Thanks for reading!
Joanna Robin
ICIJ's digital editor
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