Law firm Appleby says it has reached a settlement with the BBC and the Guardian over the Paradise Papers exposés.

Appleby, which has 10 offices around the world including Athol Street, Douglas, announced in December it intended to sue the Guardian and the BBC over the use of documents it says were stolen in a ’sophisticated’ cyber attack.

Stories exposing the offshore world published by the Guardian and broadcast by BBC Panorama were based on 13.4m files, including seven million documents from Appleby, that were obtained by German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung and shared with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

The law firm said it launched its breach of confidence claim against the Guardian and the BBC to find out which of its confidential documents had been taken.

But now in a joint statement, Appleby, Guardian News and Media Limited and the BBC have announced they have resolved their differences.

It says the Guardian and the BBC, ’without compromising their journalistic integrity or ability to continue to do public interest journalism’, had explained which documents may have been used to underpin their journalism.

’It is now clear the vast majority of documents that were of interest in the Paradise Papers investigation related to the fiduciary business that is no longer owned by Appleby and so were not legally privileged documents,’ the statement continues.