The Paradise Papers – a cache of 13.4 million leaked documents – included confidential emails, board minutes and tax-structuring plans that implicate a number of large multinational companies in tax-avoidance schemes.

According to the papers, Glencore was one of 19 Australian-based corporations to use the scheme to load themselves up with debt to avoid paying their fair share of Australian tax.

The Paradise Papers were picked up by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung last year and released to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists yesterday.

Glencore exports coal as well as copper, zinc, nickel, oil, grain and cotton from Australia and, in 2014 the company made $23.7 billion in revenue and $296 million in profits, and paid tax of $55 million on the profit.

However, according to the Paradise Papers, Glencore used the swaps in a $3.7 billion refinancing of its Australian operations in 2013 and in a major Australian restructure in 2014 that left it with debts of $US11.6 billion, with the complicated swap financing structures routed through Glencore companies in Bermuda.

Glencore has claimed – in the aftermath of the report’s release – that its use of the swap financing scheme was voluntarily disclosed to the ATO in a pre-lodgement compliance review, and claimed the decision to stop using the scheme in 2016 had nothing to do with the ATO action.

The Swiss multinational claimed it used the swaps to hedge foreign exchange risks but this ceased once the ATO made a ruling about how it reported its financial accounts.

Glencore said that as a result it had had recently shut many of its Bermuda-based companies and paid all taxes required by law, and also cut debt in Australian operations by $US4 billion since late 2014.

It also denied it was currently under ATO audit or review over its use of debt or the swaps, but admitted it was under ATO audit for its use of a Swiss marketing hub.

Glencore is also objecting to the assessments of two other audits that have already cost it $US42 million.

According to Glencore, the business did not pay tax due to the lack of profitability in the underlying operations, however, operations in Australia are profitable and tax will be paid.

The ATO is believed to have looked at 19 major resources companies involved in the scheme and still has 13 of those under review, with deputy commissioner Mark Konza telling reporters from ABC’s Four Corner’s program that while the two-step scheme took them a while to detect they were now following it up and making a lot of inquiries, and were keen to get their hands on the Paradise Papers to fully explore the Australian implications.

The Paradise Papers name more than 12,000 people and companies, including U2 front man Bono, the Queen of England and Queen Noor of Jordan, presidents from Colombia and Liberia, and former prime ministers of Canada, Pakistan and Japan.