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The UK government is being accused of giving in to pressure from the British Virgin Islands (BVI) by letting it restrict access to its company ownership register.
Only people judged by the BVI authorities to have a “legitimate interest” will be able to see who owns shares in BVI companies.
This goes against a UK law passed in 2008 that says the register should be open to everyone. Public registers of beneficial owners have long been seen as one of the best ways to uncover corruption and tax evasion in overseas territories.
Talks between Foreign Office ministers and leaders of the British overseas territories are starting in London. An all-party group of MPs says this meeting is “the last chance” for the government to act before a major anti-corruption conference next year.
The conference was announced by the former foreign secretary, David Lammy.
A letter from Phil Brickell, who chairs the parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, urges ministers to push places like the BVI and Cayman Islands to finally deliver the transparency rules they promised. The letter says this week’s meeting is the final opportunity to fix the BOTs’ problems before the Global Illicit Finance Summit, which the UK wants to use to show it is “the anti-corruption capital of the world”.
Brickell said the situation has gone on for too long. In his view, repeated broken promises have damaged Britain’s reputation as a clean place to do business. He said that the overseas territories blocking these changes are letting down the rest of the “British family”, including those that have already opened their books.
The government’s anti-corruption champion, Margaret Hodge, visited the BVI in September. She said she hoped this week’s meeting would finally produce an agreement on opening the registers. Hodge helped pass the original laws requiring all overseas territories to make these registers public.
At the 2024 council meeting, all territories that had not yet complied did agree to create open registers by June 2025. The UK had earlier set a deadline of December 2023, giving them more than five years to act.
The BVI’s definition of “legitimate interest” includes people investigating money laundering, terrorist financing, or proliferation financing, but does not seem to include journalists or members of the public and the registrar can still deny access if it thinks doing so is “in the BVI’s public interest” . The company in question would also be tipped off about any request for information.
The BVI is believed to have 12 registered companies for every citizen. In June 2025, the Financial Action Task Force placed the BVI on its grey list because of poor transparency in beneficial ownership.
Transparency International said the BVI’s rules mean that “legitimate interest” users will only see limited information. They are likely to see the names of nominee shareholders or trustees instead of the true owners who benefit from the company–which is the whole point of the legislation.
Source: The Guardian.
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