British advocacy and anti-corruption group Transparency International UK has stated that the BVI’s new policy for its company registry is restrictive and will make it difficult for people to identify the owners of companies and wealthy individuals who do business with the jurisdiction.
The UK has been pushing for the BVI to implement publicly accessible registers that are easily available to almost anyone. But the BVI government’s new policy outlines that only certain individuals with a legitimate purpose can request ownership information.
The policy also states that company owners will be notified once requestors attempt to gain access and will have the opportunity to object to their information being released. However, Transparency International UK raised major concerns with these alerts, which they described as “tipping-off clauses.”
“The proposed approach would see kleptocrats and oligarchs alerted whenever journalists and NGOs request access to information about their companies – and give them a chance to object to their data being released,” the group said in a statement.
The organisation also said that if the BVI remains unwilling to implement “meaningful access,” the UK government should consider all its options to ensure that it does.
The measures in the BVI’s new policy are similar to those previously proposed by the territory but were condemned by UK legislators, who said the proposal contained loopholes that would make it nearly impossible to determine company ownership.
In the meantime, Premier Dr Natalio Wheatley has defended the new policy, saying the BVI took several steps to define legitimate access, given that there is no single global standard for implementing these registers.
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