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Meryl Streep,left,and Jeffrey Wright in The Laundromat.Credit:Claudette Barius/Netflix

In a lawsuit filed on Tuesday in US District Court in New Haven,Connecticut,the law firm and its partners — Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca — objected to their portrayal in the film as"ruthless,uncaring and unethical lawyers"who engaged in money laundering,tax evasion and other criminal activities to benefit the wealthy. In the film,which will be available for streaming on Friday,Mossack is played by Gary Oldman and Fonseca by Antonio Banderas. Soderbergh directed the film.

The lawsuit objects to the film's characterization of Mossack and Fonseca as villains profiting from tragedies like the death of the widow's husband,making reference to dialogue in the film's trailer saying"it all goes back to this law firm Mossack and Fonseca."It references Oldman and Banderas wearing"flamboyant gold colored suits"with bow ties and"laughing sinisterly."

"The magic makes for a great story,to be sure,but the innuendo created is destructive and unfair,"the law firm claimed in court papers."It is a moneymaker for Netflix but an irreparably harmful money-loser for the plaintiffs."

Netflix declined to comment on the substance of the lawsuit,but the company filed a motion to dismiss it on Wednesday.

Gary Oldman,left,as Jürgen Mossack and Antonio Banderas as Ramón Fonseca in The Laundromat.Credit:Claudette Barius/Netflix

The law firm has sued Netflix for libel,invasion of privacy and trademarks violations,arguing that the law firm's logo is placed in scenes that"allow viewers to associate it with very serious criminal and unethical behavior."It is asking a judge to order that Netflix stop the film from being released for streaming. The film was already screened at film festivals in Venice and Toronto and has been released in a few theaters.

The story behind the Panama Papers and its moneyed cast of characters was almost certain to provide fodder for film or television. The International Consortium of Investigative Journalists,which organized coverage of the document trove in newspapers – includingThe Australian Financial Review andThe New York Times,said at the time that the documents revealed the offshore accounts of 140 politicians and public officials,including several individuals with close ties to President Vladimir Putin of Russia. The documents named King Salman of Saudi Arabia,relatives of President Xi Jinping of China and the father of David Cameron,the former prime minister of Britain. The coverage of the documents led to the resignation of Iceland's prime minister,David Gunnlaugsson. According to the consortium,the reporting has led to the recovery of more than $1.2 billion in penalties and back taxes in at least 22 countries.

According to court papers filed by the law firm,not all of the people implicated in the Panama Papers leak were technically clients of Mossack Fonseca. The firm said its role was to create companies and sell them off,but that they should not be painted as the villains if their clients ultimately sold those companies to"end users who were exposed as criminals."

In court papers,the firm argues that wide release ofThe Laundromat could result in additional investigations in Panama,where Mossack and Fonseca had been jailed for several months and are now out on bail but confined to the country. It asserts that the film could taint jurors in New York,where the law partners are under investigation by the FBI,though they have not been charged. The firm,which had dozens of offices around the world,has been investigated by law enforcement authorities in several countries over accusations of connections to money laundering.

The film is based on the 2017 bookSecrecy World by the journalist Jake Bernstein,who draws from the Panama Papers to detail a secretive financial system and recounts how Mossack Fonseca was exposed. Court papers name Bernstein,who is listed as an executive producer on the film,as someone who should have known the"falsity of the message"at the center of the film and called it out. Bernstein,who did not immediately return a request for comment on Wednesday,is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.

Haywood Jefferson Powell,a professor and director of the First Amendment Clinic at Duke Law School,said that because the Panama Papers case was a matter of such intense public interest,a successful libel suit would most likely have a high bar to clear.

Mossack Fonseca's lawyers would have to prove that the filmmakers presented a false portrayal of the firm while knowing it was inaccurate,or with reckless disregard for whether it was true,Powell said.

If the filmmakers had reasons to think the activities depicted in the movie were true,he said,"then this lawsuit will fail."

The New York Times