• Home
  • News
    • People moves
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Australia
    • Canada
    • Caribbean
    • Domicile
    • Europe
    • Latin America
    • North America
    • Middle East
    • US
    • US
    • UK
  • Products
    • Funds
    • Pensions
    • Platforms
    • Insurance
    • Investments
    • Private Banking
    • Citizenship
    • Taxation
  • Fintech
  • Regulation
  • ESG
  • Expats
  • In Depth
  • Special Reports
  • Directory
  • Video
  • Advertise with us
  • Directory
  • Events
  • European Fund Selector
  • Newsletters
  • Follow us
    • Twitter
    • LinkedIn
    • Newsletters
  • Advertise with us
  • Directory
  • Events
    • Upcoming events
      event logo
      Sustainable Investment Festival 2021

      The Sustainable Investment Festival will run online from 22-25 June and will include thought-provoking presentations from renowned keynote speakers, innovative breakout events and sessions specifically tailored to meet the information needs of fund selectors, financial advisers, pension consultants, trustees and scheme managers.

      • Date: 22 Jun 2021
      • Online, Online
      View all events
  • European Fund Selector
International Investment
International Investment

Sponsored by

Sharing Alpha
  • Home
  • News
  • Products
  • Fintech
  • Regulation
  • ESG
  • Expats
  • In Depth
  • Special Reports
  • Video
  • Investments

Jersey Finance speaker: US 'worst' on beneficial ownership regs

Jersey Finance speaker: US 'worst' on beneficial ownership regs
  • Gary Robinson
  • 27 April 2016
  • Tweet  
  • Facebook  
  • LinkedIn  
  • Send to  

The United States is arguably the “worst offender” and has “by far the biggest problem” with its beneficial ownership regulations, according to one of the keynote speakers at a major Jersey Finance conference held today in London. 

Prof Jason Sharman, an Australian national who was one of the three co-authors of a 2014 book on the secret world of offshore shell companies called Global Shell Games: Experiments In Transnational Relations, Crime, And Terrorism, singled out the United States as having “by far the biggest problem” in terms of lack of knowledge of the true owners of its companies, as it has neither licensed CSPs (corporate services providers) or registries of beneficial ownership information.

Related articles

  • 'Panama Papers' seen topic du jour at Jersey Finance event
  • FBI acknowledges Cayman's 'immense value' in tackling financial crime
  • Bahamas gov’t has ‘no intention’ of making ownership registry public
  • Jersey Finance’s Cook: A beneficial ownership update

The US is also opting out of the new OECD-promoted effort to introduce a global tax information exchange system known as the Common Reporting Standard, arguing that it doesn’t need to as it has its own scheme, the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), Prof Sharman, pictured, told his audience, at the annual Jersey Finance Private Wealth Conference.

Prof Sharman’s presentation was based on a seven-page summary of two recent research projects into the role central registries and licenced intermediaries can play in combating financial crime that he has been involved with, both of which totaled some 500 pages in their full version, he told International Investment after his presentation.

(The summary, entitled Solving The Beneficial Ownership Conundrum: Central Registries and Licenced Intermediaries, may be read and downloaded from the Jersey Finance website by clicking here.) 

Prof Sharman currently teaches at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, but is scheduled to take up the Sir Patrick Sheehy Chair in International Relations at Cambridge University next January. He has previously worked as a consultant with the World Bank, Financial Action Task Force, Asia-Pacific Group on Money Laundering and several private sector groups.

According to Prof Sharman, untraceable US shell companies are routinely used in facilitating serious crime.

“While the US does attract some criticism for its poor performance in this area, it is peculiar that IFCs (international finance centres, a term typically used to describe offshore islands that specialise in financial services, such as the Cayman Islands, Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man) are subject to much more international pressure and negative publicity, even though objectively their performance is much better.”

The expected long-term fall-out from the recent leak of some 11.5 million confidential documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca was, as expected, a key topic of discussion at the Jersey Finance conference.

As reported, Jersey and its fellow Crown Dependencies – Guernsey and the Isle of Man – as well as the 14 British Overseas Territories have been put on notice by the UK Government that it will be expecting them to disclose the beneficial owners of all companies registered on their shores.

However, Prof Sharman noted, beneficial ownership registries — of the kind being talked about by the UK and other European governments  — “are not the only way, and probably not even the best way” to deal with the problems of financial crime, money-laundering and asset secrecy.

Better, he says, is the licensing and regulating of the corporate services providers (CSPs) who set up the shell companies on behalf of clients, similar to the way banks are required to be licensed and regulated, and to legally keep information about their clients on file. Under such a system, the CSPs would be responsible for maintaining the information on the true owners of the shell companies they set up, and providing that information to the authorities as needed.

IFCs ‘notably better’

Alongside naming the US as having the worst record for keeping track of the beneficial owners of its companies and safeguarding the information, Prof Sharman cited the world’s so-called International Finance Centres, or IFCs, for “on average perform[ing] notably better than OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries” in this area.

Prof Sharman, whose research has involved posing as a consultant to “test” the willingness of various jurisdictions to reveal shell company ownership details, said some of the IFCs emerged from such trials particularly well.

“Some IFCs, like Jersey and the Cayman Islands, had a perfect record of compliance, i.e., not one of the CSPs contacted was willing to provide a shell company to our fictitious consultant without first seeing a suite of official identity documents.”

Also participating in today’s conference was Stephanie Flanders, the former BBC economics editor and current chief UK and Europe asset management market strategist at JP Morgan, who moderated two discussion panel sessions.

The conference ended with a brief address by Scottish impressionist and comedian Rory Bremner.

  • Tweet  
  • Facebook  
  • LinkedIn  
  • Send to  
  • Topics
  • Investments
  • Taxation
  • Domicile
  • Jersey Finance
  • Panama Papers
  • Private Wealth Conference

More on Investments

World Bank among calls for restraint on global pandemic tax

  • Taxation
  • 08 April 2021
Comment: Covid kickstarts India's reforming economy

  • Comment
  • 31 March 2021
Advice demand to soar in Europe by 'more than 20%'

  • Investments
  • 31 March 2021
UK boosts Islamic finance with second sovereign sukuk

  • Investments
  • 30 March 2021
FEIFA announces new members from UK and Malta

  • Investments
  • 24 March 2021
Back to Top

Most read

Will Cardano's coming of age hit Bitcoin and Ethereum?
Will Cardano's coming of age hit Bitcoin and Ethereum?
UK government must 'U-turn' on pension age change
UK government must 'U-turn' on pension age change
UK life office CEO dies
UK life office CEO dies
Dubai financial regulator names new chairman
Dubai financial regulator names new chairman
US regulator targets 'opaque' money laundering in beneficial ownership notice
US regulator targets 'opaque' money laundering in beneficial ownership notice
  • Contact Us
  • Marketing solutions
  • About Incisive Media
  • Terms and conditions
  • Policies
  • Careers
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters

© Incisive Business Media (IP) Limited, Published by Incisive Business Media Limited, New London House, 172 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5QR, registered in England and Wales with company registration numbers 09177174 & 09178013

Digital publisher of the year
Digital publisher of the year 2010, 2013, 2016 & 2017
Loading