I have been asked to do a video on transfer pricing.
Actually, I did, a couple of years or so ago (I can tell from the glasses). So rather than repeat the operation, here it is, with apologies to the several thousand who seem to have watched it in the meantime:
I have been reading more of the evidence submitted to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs hearing on Business Formation and Financial Crime.
That of the American Bar Association is shocking. They say (and I have edited their submission by eliminating but not changing text):
The ABA supports all reasonable and necessary domestic and international efforts to combat money laundering, tax evasion, and terrorist financing activity.
The ABA, however, opposes the proposed regulatory approach set forth in S. 569 and any other legislation that would unnecessarily regulate state incorporation practices and impose government-mandated suspicious activity reporting (“SAR”) on the legal profession. The ABA’s opposition is grounded in three fundamental aspects of the proposed legislation.
First, S. 569 [the bill] would essentially federalize state incorporation practices, meaning that states would be required to obtain, keep current, and make available to law enforcement authorities “beneficial ownership” information on corporations and limited liability companies. In our view, the imposition of a federal regulatory regime focused on beneficial ownership information is not workable, would be extremely costly, would impose onerous burdens on state authorities and legitimate businesses, would run counter to formation practices of major countries (including Canada, Mexico, Japan, and China), and will not achieve the laudable goal of assisting federal law enforcement authorities with pursuing and prosecuting criminal activity.
For instance, obligating state agencies to collect beneficial ownership information would involve significant and expensive hardware and software changes, including the creation of a parallel record keeping system consisting of public and non-public information. These impediments, coupled with an unwieldy definition of beneficial ownership and the bill’s focus on only a limited number of entities, would sow confusion into the formation process that would not enhance law enforcement’s goals.
Second, S. 569 would create a new class of “financial institutions,” known as formation agents, that would be subject to enhanced anti-money laundering (“AML”) requirements. Because lawyers assist clients in forming corporations and limited liability companies, the designation of formation agents as financial institutions subject to additional AML requirements threatens to sweep in U.S. lawyers and treat them as the functional equivalents of banks.
Third, S. 569 could potentially impose SAR requirements on the legal profession, meaning that lawyers would have to report to governmental authorities a suspicion that their clients are engaging in money laundering or terrorist financing activity.
Let’s summarise this:
a) We want law enforcement but not if it costs anything or might work
b) We want an exclusive crave out for ourselves that provides competitive advantage
c) We wish that competitive advantage to be based on turning a blind eye to criminality.
Yes: I know about client confidentiality. But crime is always a crime and whilst lawyers must be able to defend their clients it is an unfortunate fact that lawyers have also been found,time and again, to be assisting tax abuse in the US. Those lawyers should not be able to use the right of criminal defence lawyers to avoid their obligations when they incorporate legal entities. That seems to me an abuse of the right of the lawyer.
I find these arguments quite shocking. This is a profession that appears to want to allow anonymity so it might profit from it, even if that use might be criminal. That is utterly ethically unacceptable. No wonder lawyers are held in such low regard.
As I have noted, there was a US Senate hearing today on a bill designed to require the identification of the beneficial ownership of US corporate entities in front of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The US Treasury testimony was given by Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing David S. Cohen. His testimony is here.
The core of it is this:
At the outset, it is important to recognize a number of key considerations that have informed our thinking:
First, the ability of criminal and other illicit actors to form corporations in the United States without disclosing their true identity presents a serious vulnerability. It creates a pathway for criminal actors to gain access to the international financial system, and creates significant obstacles in our ability to investigate financial crime. As I will explain, there is ample evidence that criminal organizations and others who threaten our national security exploit this vulnerability.
Second, information on the true beneficial ownership of a legal entity – at the time a business is formed, as ownership changes during its lifespan, and when it seeks to open accounts at financial institutions – is critical to stopping the exploitation of legal entities by criminal actors.
Third, the challenge of enhancing access to the beneficial ownership information of legal entities is complex and requires a global solution. While we work within the Administration and with Congress to address this issue domestically, Treasury is also working with our foreign counterparts to improve global understanding and capability to address this challenge worldwide.
Fourth, in seeking to make beneficial ownership information available in ways that effectively address the misuse of legal entities, we are keenly aware of the need to preserve an efficient and straightforward entity formation process in the United States, and not to create unnecessary impediments to accessing the financial system for the vast majority of new and existing businesses that pose no threat whatsoever.
Finally, because we are starting from a situation in which beneficial ownership information is not required at the time of company formation, we believe that even incremental progress in this area is likely to yield substantial positive results.
I think their are two things to say in response. First, anyone who thinks the Tax Justice Network was wrong to name the USA / Delaware as the leading location for opacity in the world financial system should now be silenced.
Second, his points two to five justify all that we have said in the Financial Secrecy Index and at secrecyjurisdictions.com.
Times are changing. And I am quite convinced that beneficial ownership data on public record will become the public norm, eventually.
A new tax haven created by the West African state of Ghana could attract tax dodgers and drug traders seeking to launder money unless safeguards are introduced, warns a report launched today.
The report, Taxation and Development in Ghana, co-funded by Christian Aid Ghana, says the potential detrimental effects of the International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) could be felt across the region. The centre has been set up with the help of Barclays bank.
‚ÄòThe risk of illicit funds finding their way into the offshore financial centre is particularly acute given the extensive cocaine trade in the country and the massive flows from oil that are expected in the near future’, says the report. Large oilfields were recently discovered off Ghana’s coast.
If the Ghanaian government is committed to the IFSC becoming fully operational, the report argues that it should first produce and disseminate credible, well-researched evidence about the potential benefits and risks for Ghana. In addition, officials working in the Central Bank, Registrar General and tax agencies should be extremely well versed in the relevant laws and should work closely together to minimise the risks.
Furthermore, the Government should introduce special methods to monitor inflows of funds from regional oil producing states, potentially in conjunction with the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, because such funds are of notoriously questionable origin.
The report goes on to warn that unless Ghana co-operates in the global fight against financial crime, it is at risk of being added to the tax haven blacklist set up recently by the Organisation for Co-Operation and Development.[i]
Other sections of the report are devoted to Ghana’s sources of tax revenue and the need to increase them in order to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign aid.
The report estimates that Ghana currently loses around 50 per cent of the corporate tax revenues it is due each year (that is, it loses some £109 million /125 million Euros) to tax dodging by multinational companies. A major part of the problem, it says, is that most tax officials lack a thorough understanding of companies’ complex tax avoidance schemes.
Mining companies are highlighted as a particular problem, in that they impose major environmental costs but contribute very little to Ghana’s tax revenues, despite their large profits in recent years. For instance, the report states that between 2002 and 2006, mining firms as a group paid a maximum of 2 per cent of their turnover in corporation tax, and a minimum of 0.5 per cent.
The report blames the low contribution of mining on a combination of tax evasion by some firms and their expatriate employees and on the failure of tax officials to properly enforce existing law, some of which they say is too complex.
Another problem highlighted by the report is the failure of Ghana’s tax collection agencies publicly to disclose (and even, perhaps, to evaluate) the effects of the generous tax incentives the country offers foreign investors.
Asked recently about the haven’s potential for abuse, Barclays Bank said: ‚ÄòBarclays has been operating in Ghana for more than 90 years. During this time, we have earned a reputation for partnering with Ghana’s government to extend access to banking services, build a culture of saving amongst the Ghanaian population and promote the development of the Ghanaian economy.
‚ÄòThe creation of the IFSC is another landmark achievement in developing Ghana’s financial services sector and Barclays is proud to have been able to partner with the Ghanaian government in this initiative. We adhere to the highest and most stringent levels of international regulation, rules and industry guidance for the financial services sector.’
The report is being launched today (Monday 14 September) at the offices of the British Council in Accra, to mark the start of Ghana’s Tax Week, organised by the country’s Chartered Taxation Institute. The study was commissioned by Christian Aid Ghana from Tax Justice Network Africa.
The report is available at: http://www.christianaid.org.uk/images/taxation-and-development-in-ghana.pdf
FT.com / Companies / Pharmaceuticals – Pfizer agrees to plead guilty in painkiller case.
Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical group, on Wednesday agreed to plead guilty to illegally promoting its painkiller Bextra, as part of a record-breaking $2.3bn final settlement reached with federal and state authorities across the US.
The company signed a “corporate integrity agreement” with the Department of Health and Human Services requiring regular and independently audited re ports over five years de signed to ensure im proved marketing practices.
But of course no company would ever do transfer mispricing.
This was fraud.
So is transfer mispricing.
Apologists for big business deny such fraud exists and promote research methods to find it that cannot work.
It’s time we admitted the truth: busuiness is willing to be fraudulent when it thinks it can get away with it. It does so at cost to us all. This is not victimless crime. And the campaigns I am involved with seek to tackle those crimes.
Honest business should support what we do. So far none have. Doesn’t that say it all?
The US Attorney’s Office in California has released details of a case involving a man from Malibu named John McCarthy.
McCarthy used the services of UBS to evade tax. You can read the whole agreement he has reached with the US authorities here, but the key bits are as follows:
So what do we have?
First, active involvement of UBS in what they knew to be tax evasion.
Second, active involvement of a Swiss lawyer in what he or she knew to be tax evasion.
And third repeated money laundering offences in Switzerland, Hong Kong, Cayman, Liechtenstein and the BVI (no surprises there, mind you).
This is not just a matter of a bank not identifying an offence: this is evidence of a bank being an active party in criminal behaviour.
So let’s ask questions:
1) Why is UBS allowed to trade anywhere in the world?
2) Why aren’t those bankers and lawyers who set this up being extradited for trial in the US, where they committed offences?
3) Will Switzerland cooperate in prosecution of the people?
4) How come no regulator anywhere spotted this? Is it because they have all the right pieces of paper in place but turn a blind eye to what is going on?
5) Why do we still allow secrecy jurisdictions to peddle their abusive structures when it is so obvious that this is what they are all about?
I know there will be a host of reactions form within secrecy jurisdictions saying ‚Äò just a bad apple’ etc., but that is absolute rubbish. For seven years I’ve been part of the Tax Justice Network, saying this is exactly what happens in these places – and with the active cooperation of bankers, lawyers and accountants. We’ve been proven right so often surely the time for action is now?
So let’s start with Automatic Information Exchange (AIE): UBS knew the real owner of these accounts. If they had been required, as I have proposed, to tell the US that McCarthy had structures in each of the places in which they maintained accounts for him of which they had recorded him as beneficial owner then this abuse would not have been possible.
Which is precisely why the OECD should be moving in this direction at its forum in September. If you really want to stop abuse AIE is the only way to go. And it is possible.
I have been asked if I would reproduce here the article I wrote recently for the Cayman Financial Review under the above title. This is it:
——————
Recent press reports suggest Cayman is at the eye of a storm. To take an article from the UK’s Daily Telegraph of 28 May 2009 as an example1, it reported:
“Anthony Travers, chairman of the Cayman Islands Financial Services Association and the Cayman Islands’ Stock Exchange, says Cayman is a stable, transparent, tax neutral jurisdiction with a secure, British legal system that is used by global financial institutions to access international capital markets.”
In a paragraph that paper, I assume accurately reporting Mr Travers’ words, encapsulates the differences of perception that flow around Cayman. Mr Travers projects an opinion, which is no doubt sincerely held by him and many within the Cayman financial community, but which those who criticise Cayman from outside its domain simply do not recognise.
I am one of those critics. Although I am a long standing member of the financial services community, a chartered accountant, former senior partner of a London firm and a past director of numerous companies I am also a founder of the Tax Justice Network. I currently act as an adviser to the TJN and the UK’s Trade Union Congress, although I stress the opinions offered here are my own.
Both the TUC and TJN argue for tax justice. In doing so we assume that all people stand equal before the law, and should be treated equally by the law. This is an assumption that we make not only within a jurisdiction, but beyond and between them. This assumption extends to the important role of the state in ensuring that the property rights of people are upheld, but we argue that this in turn requires that those people recognise the right of the state to its claim on their property in the form of taxation. This then involves recognition of the importance of the rule of law being upheld both within and between states and in turn the mutual dependency of states in achieving this goal, not least with regard to tax.
Within this context those who argue for tax justice uphold the right of the individual, for example to privacy when they act within a personal capacity and within the requirements of the law. This is, however, we think a qualified right. The right to privacy is matched by the individual’s obligation to the state, firstly to pay tax in accordance with the laws of the place or places where they locate their economic activities (as opposed to where they record them), and second to act responsibly with regard to any privileges granted to them by that state or those states. One such privilege includes the right to use legal structures affording benefit not available to an individual in their own right. These benefits include access to limited liability through use of incorporated structures and the right to use trusts that alter the law of property and the benefits flowing from such rights.
I do not suggest curtailing the use of such structures. I do instead suggest that the privilege these structures bestow carry with them a responsibility to report that the privilege granted by society as a whole acting through a democratic mandate has been responsibly managed. That duty can only be demonstrated to have been fulfilled when evidenced, and the evidence required is that the existence of the entity, the identity of its beneficial ownership, the true identities of those managing it, its constitution and accounts that evidence the activity undertaken must all be placed on public record. That, in the opinion of many critics of Cayman and other secrecy jurisdictions, is the price to be paid for the advantage that these structures undoubtedly provide.
We do not expect this though for purely ethical or legal reasons, important as they are. We expect data on public record because it mitigates the risk of those who trade with limited liability entities. Economic theory makes it clear that the efficient allocation of resources is only possible in very particular circumstances, one of which is the availability of perfect information. That is, of course, impossible to achieve. We know that but we are equally sure that the best approximation to perfect information we can achieve reduces risk in the market place and thereby reduces the cost of capital and consequently gives rise to the greatest efficiency in the allocation of resources for the benefit of all participants. In other words, efficient markets require as much information on the nature and risk inherent in trading entities to be available as possible. This fact strongly reinforces the arguments already made for this disclosure, especially as the majority of trade is by legal entities and not natural persons.
Some, we know, accept this argument but say few offshore companies trade since most act as intermediate investment managers. That may be true, but since we would not know which ones are which without full disclosure the argument makes little sense. In addition, all such companies change property rights. This artificial intervention does in itself require that disclosure be made in the interests of accountability for the benefit provided. Our argument for disclosure holds good even in this case. The consequence is that I and the organisations I work with are calling for sound markets, the rule of law, the safeguarding of people’s property from abuse by others through the latter’s abuse of legal entities, and a level playing field in information. All of these are predicates of sound markets.
Markets depend on the existence of property rights. We support those rights but think that the person who is relying upon the law has a duty to comply with the spirit of that law as well as its strict letter. As a consequence we hold to the concept of tax compliance which we define as seeking to pay the right amount of tax (but no more) in the right place at the right time where right means that the economic substance of the transactions undertaken coincides with the place and form in which they are reported for taxation purposes. It is readily apparent as a result that we do not condone the recording of a transaction in one location when it actually takes place elsewhere, at least without full disclosure being made in both places. This does though mean that we challenge the whole offshore world, for by definition offshore structures always record transactions in a place where they do not actually occur.
This reality of the offshore world has been the subject of considerable review by us. Although many, Mr Travers included, seem to equate the attractiveness of offshore to taxation we have, after long reflection and research, realised that this has been a very useful diversion when considering what offshore locations have to offer to those who make use of their facilities. The core offering they make is in fact of secrecy. Without the secrecy that those places, which I have collectively termed secrecy jurisdictions, have to offer then we doubt that many of their other offerings would be of benefit to the clients of the lawyers, accountants and bankers who work from, but in a very real sense not in, these locations. That is why you will now rarely hear the critics of such places refer to them as tax havens. The term ‚Äòsecrecy jurisdiction’ is our description of choice.
I have defined secrecy jurisdictions as places that intentionally create regulation for the primary benefit and use of those not resident in their geographical domain with that legislation or regulation being designed to undermine the legislation or regulation of another jurisdiction. In addition, secrecy jurisdictions create a deliberate, legally backed veil of secrecy that ensures that those from outside the jurisdiction making use of its regulation cannot be identified to be doing so. I and Cayman’s many critics believe that Cayman is a secrecy jurisdiction. The term is, of course, used in the Stop Tax Haven Abuse Act promoted by Senator Carl Levin (and in its time by the former Senator Barack Obama).
If that is the case then it is very apparent that the claim Mr Travers makes for Cayman does not match the perception of many in the UK, USA, France, Germany and elsewhere, both within government and in civil society who work on the tax haven/secrecy jurisdiction issue.
Using the standards of transparency outlined in this paper, which I readily admit are in ideal not met by any jurisdiction of which I am aware, but which are, despite that, informing public debate, Cayman falls far short of any claim to be transparent. It is not possible, for example, for a member of the public to secure the accounts of a Cayman corporation while the use of nominees is so rampant that all other data placed on public record is assumed by the public to be of little real meaning since it is highly unlikely to provide any real evidence as to the ownership or control of the limited liability entities with which a person may be trading in Cayman. Market inefficiency is the inevitable consequence. By this standard Cayman is not transparent – it is for all practical purposes almost completely opaque.
Cayman’s critics hold that the same is true for tax information exchange purposes as well. Of course we acknowledge that it has signed a limited number of Tax Information Exchange Agreements. Most are decidedly recent, the agreement with the USA being the significant exception. And, as I have noted, based on Cayman’s budget2 for 2008-09, the amount of data to be supplied is anticipated to be very low indeed in proportion to the number of transactions likely to be undertaken, just eighty requests are anticipated. There is good reason for that. As the standard TIEA makes clear3, a TIEA request must provide or state:
(a) the identity of the person under examination or investigation;
(b) what information is sought;
(c) the tax purpose for which it is sought;
(d) the grounds for believing that the information requested is held within the jurisdiction of which request is made;
(e) to the extent known, the name and address of any person believed to be in possession of the requested information.
The reason for the low number of information requests becomes obvious immediately. There is considerable secrecy within Cayman about trusts of all sorts. Determining from readily available sources the ownership and control of companies is almost impossible in Cayman. Cayman has official banking secrecy. In that case the chance of linking assets owned by a company in turn controlled by a trust of which the person under investigation may or may not be settler and/or beneficiary is remote in the extreme. In consequence the existence of TIEAs is immaterial – the reality is they have no practical value.
I suggest that the similar accusations can be levelled against all of Cayman’s claims of transparency, even when, as is clear from Stephen Platt’s article4 in the Second Quarter 2009 edition of this journal, those claims are in reality only made with regard to money laundering matters and not with regard to the much broader issues to which this article relates. As a result we suggest that contrary to Cayman’s claims, financial transparency is largely absent within the jurisdiction. Cayman might claim to meet and even lead international standards on this issue. Others, the OECD included, appear not to agree. Explanation of this difference of perception is, I think, possible, I am not so confident the gulf in philosophy that it suggests exists will be so easily dealt with.
There are three core differences evident in the debate on Cayman’s financial transparency. The first is that Cayman is relying on the form of legislation to justify its position. It cannot be disputed that on paper Cayman has many of the tools needed to tackle money laundering, financial crime and to information exchange for tax (at least with a limited number of other jurisdictions). The form of being compliant exists. The problem is that critics like me say that the substance of exchange is not happening, as the budgeted number of exchanges and the near impossibility of using TIEAs evidences. We have no interest in the form of compliance: we are interested in the outcome of compliance, and do not have the evidence we need that it is happening.
Secondly, Cayman persists in arguing that this matter relates only to financial crime. In tax it is exceptionally hard to prove what is criminal or not, particularly when the ‚Äòsmoking gun’ that would provide the evidence of abuse of offshore arrangements is hidden behind the veils of secrecy that Cayman provides to the clients of those banks, lawyers and accountants working out of its domain. What might be legal in Cayman may not be in the territory in which the clients of those ‚Äòsecrecy providers’ actually operate, but as Maples and Calder noted5 in their comments to the US Government Accountability Office in 2008, they consider “that ultimate responsibility for compliance with US tax laws lies with US taxpayers”.
The implication in the context quoted was that Maples denied responsibility for the US compliance of their clients: this is something that critics suggest offshore financial services firms cannot do. We argue that they are responsible for the supply of the structures many in so called onshore jurisdictions use to avoid and maybe evade taxes. In that case critics think that Cayman (and other secrecy jurisdictions) has a duty to ensure that the tax consequences of the structures it facilitates, which because they are ‚Äòoffshore’ do by definition arise in other jurisdictions, are reported in those locations where those consequences arise to mitigate the risk that financial crime, including tax evasion, might occur in that or those places. Until this happens then the definition of financial crime used by Cayman is, in my opinion, far too narrow.
Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, there remains a fundamental ideological difference in approach between those who work offshore and their critics. Few would argue that even at its best offshore taxation is anything but tax avoidance. This must be the case, again by definition since offshore might be defined as the provision of tax and regulatory privileges to those who do not conduct active business affairs within a jurisdiction. It follows that the main purpose of the Cayman financial services sector is to record transactions whose real economic impact is elsewhere. This suggests that the difference between the substance and form of transactions is absolutely central to all it does. Cayman provides the form of transactions; their substance comes from ‚Äòelsewhere’. To a very large degree the critics of Cayman do, as a result, continue to hold the opinion that the place is little more than a ‚Äòbooking centre’, albeit that we accept that Cayman is more than capable of innovation and creativity in the way in which it undertakes the booking of transactions. We also doubt that Cayman takes its responsibility to those places described as ‚Äòelsewhere’ sufficiently seriously, even if it knows where they might be.
The difficulty for Cayman is that tax and other regulatory avoidance is now seen for what it really is – a process of getting round the law. The argument that ‚Äòwhat is lawful is appropriate’ no longer holds true with the public or much political opinion. And the mantra that financial transparency and accountability stops such abuse is not offered idly, the reality is that this does really stop abuse. That does, however, require me to conclude by stating what financial transparency means in this context. Having said which I admit that I have tried to define financial transparency but I have come to the reluctant conclusion that it is in this respect an elephant: capable of description but not of definition. I therefore offer the following description of financial transparency instead:
Financial transparency is a four stage process. Financial transparency requires that:
This is, of course, a very different interpretation of financial transparency to that offered by Mr Travers on behalf of Cayman. First, the notion of criminality has little to do with it. Secondly, the range of laws to be complied with is wide and relates to civil as well as criminal matters. Third, disclosure of the substance of transactions would necessarily require that disclosure be made in those places where the impact of offshore transactions arises. So, for example, a Cayman company effectively pursuing activity in the UK would be expected to file data with the UK Registrar of Companies.
Substance also requires beneficial rather than legal owners to be disclosed whilst ‚Äòother structures’ extends disclosure requirements to trusts, and it is only natural persons transacting in their own name who have a right to privacy with regard to commercial issues under this definition. In all others cases, including partnerships, the claim of others requires that disclosure be made. None of this, of course, compromises the right of the individual – no one is obliged to use a legal entity, trust, partnership or any other structure. All are choices provided for in law, but none are obligatory. But, in case of real risk arising, an opt out is offered, and I think that appropriate if used exceptionally.
Of course this standard of financial transparency is an ideal. I accept that no state reaches this standard at present but the move in sentiment is clearly in this direction. That is the issue with which Cayman must contend. Whilst it shows little understanding of the concepts inherent in this ideal form, nor recognises the validity of the demand for information of this sort then the language it uses will continue to be misunderstood, as will be those who use it, which is of no benefit to anyone.
Can Cayman embrace this approach? Can it at least engage with and debate this approach constructively and with an open mind? That in itself might be a challenge for inherent in his argument are very different perceptions of the nature of property from those commonplace, I suspect, in Cayman. But if Cayman wants to make progress it might have little choice but do so.
Cayman Islands – Cay Compass News Online – Grey list goalposts shift.
Cayman thinks ‘international standards’ on information exchange are just a numbers game. I feared that, but it is clear now that this is not the intent of Gordon Brown, otther workld leaders or the OECD.
Despite this it’s reported that:
Jack Quinn, co–founder and chairman of Quinn Gillespie and Associates, who spoke to industry players and [Cayman] government officials at Tuesday night’s dinner, said that while his chief aim was to get Cayman’s message across on Capitol Hill, he also wanted to help “make sure this OECD drama ends right now”.
“I get nervous sometimes that OECD people might move the goalposts on us, and there are hints of that already as we hear talk of the OECD wanting not merely a dozen bilateral treaties, but a record of compliance and executable commitments made in those treaties,” he said.
“One can’t help but get the feeling that the closer we get to the carrot, the further they might pull it away,” Mr. Quinn added.
Speaking at the signing the agreement with the Netherlands, Mr. Bush said: “The Cayman Islands have repeatedly reassured the rest of the world that we provide no safe harbour to those who are involved in any unlawful activities be it tax evasion, money laundering or any form of trans–national criminal activity.
“We pride ourselves as a major international financial service centre that guarantees high standards of services underpinned by internationally recognised and accepted levels of regulation.”
But let’s be clear Mr Quinn:
a) your word is not good enough
b) proof is needed – and right now it is not available
c) if you think agreements with Ireland, the US, UK, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, Greenland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden are enough then you are clearly lacking in any understanding of what financial transparency is.
Perhaps you should read this.
Having just had an article in the Cayman Financial Review I now find myself in an article in Business Life – a Jersey magazine. Page 8 onwards, here.
Curiously the question remains the same – what is financial transparency? In the latest article, in response to my comments on this the following is written:
The Kirkby in question is Robert Kirkby, Technical Director of Jersey Finance. It is good, of course, to see him confirm what we’ve been saying for a while – that Jersey is a secrecy jurisdiction.
He is though quite straightforwardly wrong: no one has to have a company or trust. there is no abuse of privacy if those who avail themselves of privileges granted by society are asked to reveal that they are doing so. Anyone can trade in or hold assets in their own name and have privacy, that option is always available.
This is not a breach of human rights.
And when the ‚Äòlegitimate’ desire to protect wealth involves hiding behind a veil of secrecy in a secrecy jurisdiction such as Jersey then it becomes illegitimate.
That’s why life for Jersey is going to get harder. The days of playing that game are numbered.
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