Cayman is the only major UK Overseas Territory offshore financial centre to have an open register of beneficial ownership up and running by the April deadline, a UK watchdog has reported.
Transparency International UK said Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, Turks and Caicos and Anguilla had all failed to keep a promise made last year to have legislation on their books to provide better access to ownership information by last month.
The campaign group said, “The Cayman Islands have continued to position themselves as one of the earlier movers towards corporate transparency, delivering both primary and secondary legislation for increased public access to this information before the April deadline.”
Steve McIntosh, the CEO of Cayman Finance, said, “As the industry association for financial services in the Cayman Islands, Cayman Finance is pleased to note the positive coverage resulting from the jurisdiction’s hard work in recent years to introduce beneficial ownership transparency legislation.”
McIntosh added, “The Cayman Islands continues to place a high priority on aligning with international standards.
“Doing so is the best way to ensure our continued growth and success as an international finance centre.”
Despite its acknowledgement of Cayman’s adherence to the beneficial ownership register deadline, Transparency International claimed there were problems with aspects of the Cayman legislation and that there were “some serious flaws in their proposed approach, and seemingly little change between their draft proposals and final laws”.
The watchdog added that the Companies Register in Cayman would charge $30 for a single request and $100 if the information asked for related to more than one company.
It said that, out of line with the European Union’s sixth anti-money laundering directive, organisations or journalists who wanted to investigate potential offences would have to apply on a case-by-case basis and explain why they were interested in a particular company.
Transparency International highlighted that the last condition “would likely need them to know who owns a company in the first place – undermining the register’s utility”.
It added, “Any companies controlled by trusts will also be able to dodge disclosing their beneficiaries, instead merely providing details of the trustee.”
The British Virgin Islands government hit back and told the UK’s Guardian newspaper it was “in the late stages of finalising its policy, which will be shared with UK government imminently and published in due course”.
A spokesman for the Bermuda government said it was “in the process of taking the necessary steps, both legislative and operational, towards the implementation of a legitimate interest access beneficial ownership register”.
The five countries pledged to pass suitable legislation at last year’s Joint Ministerial Council meeting in London.
Related Videos
This register of Beneficial Ownership is a terrible idea.
The UK is the only country that has this. Certainly no USA state Register of Corporations allows the general public to see the owners of companies. Instead they protect the privacy of shareholders.
It is a great shame that the UK bullied its overseas territories to do this.