Court Refuses to Block Netflix Release of 'The Laundromat'

[babylonsister]

https://variety.com/2019/film/news/netflix-laundromat-injunction-denied-1203375208/


October 18, 2019 7:21AM PT
Court Refuses to Block Netflix Release of ‘The Laundromat’
By Gene Maddaus


A judge has refused to block the release of “The Laundromat,” a Netflix film based on the Panama Papers scandal.

Jurgen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca — the attorneys at the center of the scandal — filed suit in federal court in Connecticut on Tuesday, claiming they were defamed by the film. The attorneys asked for an injunction that would bar Netflix from distributing the Steven Soderbergh film on its platform.

In a ruling on Thursday night, Judge Janet Bond Arterton refused to issue the injunction, and instead transferred the case to California. Arterton found that the Connecticut court has no jurisdiction over the issue.

“This lawsuit was a frivolous legal stunt designed to censor creative expression,” Netflix said in a statement. “Steven Soderbergh’s film tells an important story about the exploitation of innocent people and the misuse of the world’s financial system. Fortunately, you can now watch ‘The Laundromat’ — the film that Mossack and Fonesca tried to censor — on Netflix.”

The movie was given a limited theatrical release on Sept. 27, and began streaming at 12:01 a.m. on Friday.

The film is based on “Secrecy World,” a book about the Panama Papers. In 2015, an anonymous whistleblower leaked 11.5 million documents from the Mossack Fonseca law firm, which revealed a massive web of offshore tax havens.

Mossack Fonseca shuttered its operations last year, and is facing criminal inquiries around the globe. The attorneys allege that the additional publicity from the film will goad Panamanian prosecutors into action, and could taint a potential jury pool if charges are ever brought in the United States.

[58Sunliner]

1. Thanks. I'll watch this tonight.

[Roy Rolling]

13. Same Here

Toy Story 4, you'll have to wait. And I was looking forward to distraction from this nonstop shitshow.

Saturday Night at the Movies sure has changed since people would “drop“ and search for where "Yellow Submarine" or "2001..." was playing. 😂

[Hotler]

2. Kicking....nt

[alittlelark]

3. I just finished watching it with coffee and cats

It was very well done - it laid out the problem in a very easily understood way. It truly indicts the US tax system and the politicians that support it, but does so in a very roundabout yet easily understood manner.

Kind of odd that it had so many so-so and negative reviews - especially since it just came out.

[Mme. Defarge]

7. Coffee and cats, that's the ticket!

Always a reason to get out of bed chez moi.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

16. Did you understand the China episide?

The Falun Gong being targeted by Xi. The Maywood encounter? I was confused by how that turned out.

[llashram]

4. I am watching

Last edited Sat Oct 19, 2019, 01:20 PM - Edit history (1)

right now. Starting very well, I'm hooked. Nefarious people with their analogs. Know this is true. With probably some creative license. I'm pissed already. 10:18 into the film. I know the Bernie Madoff clones-knockoffs. These people have no souls. No conscience. No nothing but abject greed like donald trump and most republicans these days. Thanks for this tip. I see why they, the PTB, would want to block this from our view. Trump, trump, trump and more trump!!! Easily understood by me a layman with no wealth to speak of...such scoundrels...part of this new Gilded Age of the wealthy worldwide aristocrats. Everyday people stand no chance against this type of crook. The so-called "banking crisis" that the Bush-Cheney years gave us and that President Obama had to 'fix' all come back to me.

The next Democratic President and the next generation(s) of just simply trying to get by Americans are screwed, royally. Even the people that voted for Mr. Trump. With having a neighbor who did vote for him and having to deal with him during summer cookouts and just plain deck beer-drinking they just cannot shake the veils from their eyes nor the cobwebs in their brains to want to see the truth or in some cases they just don't care. The only thing they do care about is getting those brown people back to the central American countries from whence they came and holding on to the fantasy that they will be a millionaire, billionaire one day.

A great film on the massive corruption in the finance market. Yep, and trump continued to help them along with his 'tax break' for us meek.
I understand completely why the financial PTB wanted this film buried. Forever probably. Thanks again.

[Delmette2.0]

5. I'll watch sometime today.

We don't hear enough about the fallout of the Panama Papers.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

17. wonder what happened in 2016 to overshadow it?

This lawsuit is a blessing.

[Mc Mike]

6. Worth viewing more than once.

Spider's web of corruption, globally. A lot of great cameo appearances.

Makes the international money laundering and tax avoidance easy to understand. (Makes the impacts easy to understand, the mechanisms are complex.)

[The Mouth]

8. NOTHING should ever be censored

or made unavailable, or redacted. Any human on the planet should be able to access any media ever created.

I don't care how whacked out, defamatory, inaccurate, scandalous or inciting, the second even ONE asshole says 'no one should see that' I want to see it on a billion screens. The ONLY exceptions I can imagine are for kiddie porn or the CURRENT specs of classified equipment and identities of secrete agents.

[Perseus]

9. I watched it last night, its a MUST-SEE

Meryl Streep, Gary Oldman and Antonio Banderas are superb. Everything, the fraud, is explained very well as it goes, it is an insight into the corruption that went on in regards to the "Panama Papers".

I strongly recommend it, and if you have teen-age kids, please make sure they watch it, it is very educational.

[Butterflylady]

10. Watched it

Now I fully understand what I watched. I love Meryl Streep.

[Danascot]

11. Does it say anything about Daphne Caruana Galizia, the journalist who was assassinated?

https://www.npr.org/2018/07/22/630866527/mastermind-behind-malta-journalist-killing-remains-a-mystery

[2naSalit]

12. Some of that money

has ended up buying prime properties in the US, they've made some major purchases in my area.

[SleeplessinSoCal]

14. Thank you for the find. Variety, eh? Interesting

Netflix has done little to promote this. It must be a very hot potato. The lawsuit may be the best publicity Soderberg could ask for. There should be a sequel about the movie, which already pokes fun of itself.

Sharing.

[Stallion]

15. These Attorneys Aren't Too Bright

...now everybody is going to want to watch the film-which I had not been informed of-great publicity for the film

[Hestia]

18. Tax Avoidance and Tax Fraud are only separated by the narrow wall of a jail cell

Did y'all notice the stats --

2,000 billionaires worldwide

15,000,000 millionaires worldwide

These few people are controlling and hiding behind the MAGA's, along with the Dominionists, screaming jeebus and communism; and according to Barr and the verbiage of 1990s, secularists, humanists, progressive liberalism - These.Are.The.Problem.

I knew about Delaware, but not Nevada and Wyoming - had no idea they were Tax Avoidance states.

After you watch The Laundromat, catch Dirty Money, also on Netflix. The series drills down more into green and corruption.

[onethatcares]

19. the original or first story about insurance

roped me in. I lost 40 years of premiums to an annuity that was supposed to pay a minimum of 3% a year but wound up being worthless due to not seeing the fine print in the brochure I got from the insurance company about the "cost of insurance" going up.

That was after the insurance company changed hands, went bankrupt, came back to life and just laughed at me when I requested the check due to me. Oh, the agent was located two hours away and you speak to an answering machine when you call.

Yep, it's all shell companies and screw the little guy.

[UpInArms]

20. Daphne Caruana Galizia Was murdered for exposing injustice ... and broke the Panama Papers story

Malta car bomb kills Panama Papers journalist

The journalist who led the Panama Papers investigation into corruption in Malta was killed on Monday in a car bomb near her home.

Daphne Caruana Galizia died on Monday afternoon when her car, a Peugeot 108, was destroyed by a powerful explosive device which blew the vehicle into several pieces and threw the debris into a nearby field.

A blogger whose posts often attracted more readers than the combined circulation of the country’s newspapers, Caruana Galizia was recently described by the Politico website as a “one-woman WikiLeaks”. Her blogs were a thorn in the side of both the establishment and underworld figures that hold sway in Europe’s smallest member state.

Her most recent revelations pointed the finger at Malta’s prime minister, Joseph Muscat, and two of his closest aides, connecting offshore companies linked to the three men with the sale of Maltese passports and payments from the government of Azerbaijan.

No group or individual has come forward to claim responsibility for the attack.

.... weeping for Daphne ...