OpenCorporates Data Platform Helps Regulators

A London-based company called OpenCorporates has developed a platform that collects global corporate datasets -- many of which weren't available as open data -- and presents them as visualisations. One of the most revealing aspects of the platform is a visualisation of the global corporate networks of the six biggest banks in the US -- Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and JP Morgan.

The map aims to illustrate how complex multinational companies are. It plots the number of subsidiaries by country, along with the ownership structure. Taking Goldman Sachs as an example...[it] has more than 4,000 separate corporate entities, a third of which are registered in countries such as the Cayman Islands and Mauritius, which one might describe as tax havens. Similar patterns can be observed in all of the other banks...

Co-founder Chris Taggart told Wired.co.uk that extracting the data for the corporate networks had been really hard and really important. "Knowing what a modern corporation is an how it's all connected is absolutely critical for regulators, journalists, anti-corruption organisations and lawyers," he said. He explains that lots of companies have corporate network data which they keep hidden away. "Not only are there audiences who don't have access to it, but there are also errors," he says. "We get emails saying the data is wrong. But almost always wrong on the official records."...