As Russian software company Luxoft prepared to offer shares on the U.S. stock market, its executives turned to a well-known U.S. diplomat.
Thomas Pickering, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia who also served as undersecretary of state for political affairs under President Bill Clinton, agreed in May 2013 to be a director of Luxoft Holding Inc. a month before the company’s debut on the New York Stock Exchange.
The relationship between Luxoft and Pickering, whose diplomatic career spans six presidents and four decades, is detailed in the massive Panama Papers leak and comes amid a global debate over the role of offshore companies. Luxoft is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands.
Pickering is the highest-level former U.S. official to be identified as involved in a Panama Papers offshore company so far. The papers, which were leaked from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca to an international group of reporters, including the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and McClatchy, have already revealed that former and current world leaders had offshore companies and have led to criminal inquiries around the globe, including in the United States.