© Leonhard Foeger / Reuters
The CEO of Austrian bank Hypo Landesbank Vorarlberg resigned Thursday, following the release of 11.5 million documents from a Panama law firm accused of setting up secret offshore accounts to evade scrutiny. According to local news, the bank was one of the many institutions around the globe named in the documents released. Executive Michael Grahammer said he was “100 percent convinced that the bank broke no laws or violated sanctions” but that he was still leaving the company, due to an alleged misrepresentation in the media. Prime Minister Sigmundur Gunnlaugsson of Iceland stepped away—but did not resign—from his post on Tuesday following protests over allegations that he and his wife own an undisclosed tax haven-based company with large claims on some of the country’s collapsed banks. In a new interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mossack Fonseca partner Jürgen Mossack also denied wrongdoing and said the controversy wouldn’t change its business model. “We’re not going to stop the services and go plant bananas or something,” he said.