Topic: House of Lords

UK Minister Andrew Sharpe of Epsom is slated to visit the Cayman Islands for three days, beginning Tuesday, 6 Feb.

The British government was accused of a “double standard” in the House of Lords this week for seeking to impose public company beneficial ownership registers on its overseas territories but not taking action to legalize same-sex marriage.

During these perilous times, we urge Cayman’s leaders to be uncharacteristically open and communicative with the people of these islands. The offshore financial sector provides over half of the entire government budget, and any threat to that industry threatens us all.

The House of Lords has agreed to a controversial amendment of the U.K. Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill that instructs the British government to draft an order in council to institute publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership in the British Overseas Territories by the end of 2020, if they have not been set up by then.

Though a similar measure in the U.K. House of Lords was recently voted down, British MPs are expected to try again – perhaps as early as February – to force overseas territories to enact a public company registry that lists the beneficial owners of those entities.

An attempt to push British overseas territories to create publicly accessible beneficial ownership registries for companies, if necessary through an order in council, has been rejected by the U.K. House of Lords.