The Cayman Islands has quite a long, drawn-out process for requesting company records in its jurisdiction. Transparency campaigners say aspects of the system in the British Virgin Islands are even worse. Photograph: LOOK Die Bildagentur der Fotografen GmbH/Alamy View image in fullscreen The Cayman Islands has quite a long, drawn-out process for requesting company records in its jurisdiction. Transparency campaigners say aspects of the system in the British Virgin Islands are even worse. Photograph: LOOK Die Bildagentur der Fotografen GmbH/Alamy Tax havens ‘A mockery’: how offshore tax havens are thwarting the UK’s transparency push Critics say ownership registers are too costly and too complicated, scuppering attempts to expose alleged money laundering
Prefer the Guardian on Google S ince Britain’s offshore secrecy jurisdictions caved in to pressure from Westminster to embrace corporate transparency, finding out who owns a company in one of these island havens is, in theory at least, a piece of cake.
All you have to do is show that you have a “legitimate interest” in the data by proving that you are a researcher, journalist, member of a civil society group or a business person considering a transaction with the subject of your inquiry.
Next, you must explain how the information will be used for “preventing, detecting, investigating, combating or prosecution money laundering or its predicate offences or terrorist financing”.
Then there is a fee of at least $75 (£55) for each application. You’ll need to set up an international wire transfer though, rather than a typical online payment.
Now, fill out a lengthy form outlining exactly what information you’re after, cross your fingers and wait.
It isn’t exactly Companies House (for all its faults ).
Even when the form has been submitted, the subject of the inquiry can apply for a three-year “protection from disclosure” (at a cost of $1,000) to stop the information being sent on, on the basis that corporate transparency could expose them to harm.
These applications are refused more often than not, a Cayman Islands spokesperson said, but justifications for exemption appear to be drawn quite widely.
Reasons could include revealing any connections to “activity such as testing products on animals, which might lead to them being targeted by activists”, according to guidelines written by the Cayman Islands government.
Transparency campaigners believe aspects of the system in the British Virgin Islands (BVI) are even worse.
There, officials will inform the subject of any inquiry – perhaps a powerful oligarch or a narco-trafficker – of the name of any organisation asking the inconvenient questions, though not the names of individuals.
“Three months ago we asked whether a sanctioned Russian oligarch still owns a company holding millions worth of UK property,” said Steve Goodrich, the head of research and investigations at the anti-corruption campaign group Transparency International. “We still haven’t had a reply.”
Margaret Hodge, the veteran anti-corruption campaigner, said that the sclerotic and unpredictable nature of these corporate registries “makes a mockery of their purpose”.
Legitimate interest access registers of beneficial ownership (or Liarbos for fans of ironic acronyms) have come about after a seven-year campaign by the UK government to bring overseas territories – and crown dependencies such as Jersey and Guernsey – to heel.
The campaign has gathered steam amid mounting rea…