BY PAUL O’DONOGHUE, Senior Correspondent
THE UK government has pledged it will move ahead with making beneficial ownership registers open to the public.
A spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office said the government was pursuing fully public registers with “full vigor”.
The comments come after a cross-party group of 40 MPs wrote to foreign Secretary David Lammy, demanding that he put pressure on British crown dependencies and Overseas Territories to move ahead with fully public beneficial ownership registers.
This comes in the face of strong pushback from many UK Overseas Territories, which many reports claim are key enablers in allowing dirty money to move internationally.
And it also comes ahead of the annual Joint Ministerial Council on November 19.
This is a summit between UK government officials and overseas territories, such as the British Virgin Islands (BVI), Cayman Islands and Jersey, in London. It is the first to be held since the Labour party won a lanslide victory in the July general election.
‘These territories previously pledged to introduce registers by the end of 2023 – yet almost all have failed to do so,’ said the letter from MPs.
‘Public registers are needed to combat money laundering… [and] so we can follow the money to identify potential wrongdoing.’
Many overseas territories have pushed back against fully public registers, citing data privacy concerns.
The MPs said they were concerned that some Overseas Territories had ‘no intention’ of establishing fully public beneficial ownership registers, and added that the measure is needed ‘urgently’.
Beneficial ownership registers contain information on who truly owns various corporate entities.
State registers with this information were intended to be made publicly available across the UK overseas territories.
This was viewed as a crucial AML measure – it is reported that many of these jurisdictions are key sources of illicit finance flows. The UK government itself has estimated up to 40% of the world’s dirty money moves through overseas territories and London.
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