Tag Archives: Jersey Finance

Guest Post: Just Because UBO Data Isn’t Available for Everyone to See, It Doesn’t Make It Secret

Posted on by
2

Today’s guest post comes from Geoff Cook, CEO of Jersey Finance (a non-profit organization established to promote Jersey as an international financial center of excellence). Mr. Cook’s piece continues a debate over the UK’s recent decision to require British Overseas Territories to adopt centralized public registers with information on the ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs) of legal entities registered in those jurisdictions. The discussion of this issue at GAB was prompted by Martin Kenney’s post on the FCPA Blog, which sharply criticized the UK’s decision. GAB published two replies to Mr. Kenney’s criticisms, the first from Senior Contributor Rick Messick, and the second from Editor-in-Chief Matthew Stephenson. Earlier this week, GAB published Mr. Kenney’s response, and today Mr. Cook continues the discussion by explaining why, from the perspective particularly of a jurisdiction like Jersey, public UBO registers are unnecessary and potentially dangerous.

It is claimed that jurisdictions such as the Crown Dependencies that fail to introduce public registers of company ownership are advocating secrecy and encouraging the laundering of “dirty” money through the financial system. But the call for public registers, which serves a political agenda, is proposed in isolation, ignoring other effective measures for exchanging information that have been implemented during the last few years.

The Common Reporting Standard (CRS), for instance, has been largely ignored in the debate.  Through this OECD inspired agreement, the values of all bank accounts and investments in whatever form are exchanged automatically each year to the owner’s home tax authority. Company ownership details are included in that exchange. Jersey was an early adopter of the system in 2017 and has already swapped information with the other 50 countries that participate. More countries are joining, and will be exchanging data again in September – not a measure that fits with a secrecy agenda.

Jersey has been examined by independent standard setters such as the OECD as recently as 2017, and found to be in the top drawer for the quality of its standards and response to transparency. Jersey is one of only two jurisdictions to have the top rating so far, yet the standards attained by global organizations that truly understand the financial system are rarely quoted in the debate. Instead we are accused by detractors of obstruction and secrecy, with no regard for what is actually taking place. Continue reading →

Guest Post: Beneficial Ownership Secrecy–Not All Offshore Financial Centers Are Part of the Problem, and Public Registries Are Not the Solution

Posted on by
3

Geoff Cook, Chief Executive Officer of Jersey Finance, contributes the following guest post:

The so-called “Panama Papers”—the documents leaked from the Mossack Fonseca law firm by an anonymous whistleblower—have highlighted how certain corporate service providers (CSPs) are able to set up, in offshore international financial centers (IFCs), shell companies for their clients, with bank accounts and other assets then owned by the shell company, so that the identity of the ultimate beneficial owner is hidden. That secrecy enables corruption, tax evasion, money laundering, and other nefarious activity.

While the Panama Papers revelations may have done some good in calling more attention to abuses of the legal and financial system – abuses that can and should be fought – much of the prevailing discussion in the wake of the Panama Papers revelations – much of it driven by moral outrage and salacious headlines about dubious deals – has produced two significant analytical errors, one concerning the diagnosis of the problem, and the other concerning the appropriate prescription. Continue reading →