This article will focus, as the title shows, on the lawsuits named after John Doe. Have you ever heard of the term John Doe before? It usually references a person whose identity is unknown to the general public and is a mystery to government officials. Much in the same way, a John Doe lawsuit starts when a large company begins to notice that someone is taking aim at them. Whether it be by distributing their own materials or another way, the company knows they have to take legal action fast to get their money back.

But who to target? You don’t know who is actually hurting your company, so how do you sue a ghost? What you do is you go to a court and you start a claim, even though there are no defendants, where the defendants will be named as your search goes on. Think of the music sharing scandal and RIAA.

What happens now? The United States government allows you to do whatever you want to find out who is harming your business. This includes fishing for suspects, as RIAA did with music, by looking through their personal information and bank records. You could easily discover something you shouldn’t have seen in an innocent person’s file. It doesn’t matter to the judge. You just keep looking until you find what you are looking for. Doesn’t that sound like a witch hunt? They don’t even have to tell you that they are looking through your personal information to do it. How is that fair?

Think about it further, what if someone wanted to check your files but couldn’t. They could create a false threat, open up a John Doe lawsuit and look through your files with their court orders. Completely legal and unfair. Then what? They can use this information that they conveniently and legally found in other legal proceedings. They could publish it on the web for all to see. Your secrecy and privacy has been compromised.

In Panama, this could never happen. You can only gain access to a person’s bank records if he or she is already accused of a crime. You cannot fish for evidence or suspects. No chance of that passing in a Panama court. So if you invest all your money in Panama banks, you never have to worry about someone legally screwing you out of money that is rightfully yours! Don’t get caught up in a John Doe witch hunt.