April 8, 2016
The Iceland government will face a no-confidence motion debate in parliament Friday over the massive data leak that revealed an offshore account link to Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson, who stepped down as the country’s prime minister Tuesday after much pressure. Gunnlaugsson’s wife also had connections to the offshore account of a secretive company, the leak showed.
Icelandic opposition parties filed a fresh motion after the earlier one specifically targeted Gunnlaugsson. The country’s governing center-right coalition tried to conciliate public — protesting since the Panama Papers leak Sunday — by naming Sigurdur Ingi Johannsson as prime minister and promising for early elections in the autumn. Gunnlaugsson and his wife reportedly bought a company in 2007 from the Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca, which is at the center of the exposé, through the Luxembourg arm of Landsbanki, considered one of Iceland’s three major banks. At the time, the couple was living in the United Kingdom and used the offshore company Wintris Inc. in Panama to invest profits from the prime minister’s wife’s sale of shares in her family business.