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Joint Statement By Guernsey Isle Of Man And Jersey On Beneficial Ownership Registers

Tuesday 9th July 2019

The Crown Dependencies of Guernsey, Isle of Man and Jersey have jointly announced a series of steps regarding each jurisdiction’s central register of beneficial ownership information of companies and how they will move towards developing international standards of accessibility and transparency in the coming years.

The announcement sets out three stages consistent with the EU’s approach to transparency of beneficial ownership data of companies under the EU’s Fifth Anti Money Laundering Directive (‘5th AMLD’) within a deliverable timeframe.

The stages are:

  • the interconnection of the islands’ registers of beneficial ownership of companies with those within the EU for access by law enforcement authorities and Financial Intelligence Units, to be implemented by end 2021;
  • access for obliged business (financial service businesses and certain other prescribed businesses) for corporate due diligence purposes by the end of 2022, and
  • public access to be proposed, in line with the 5th AMLD, following the EU’s Implementation Review thereof due in January 2022.

The sequencing is consistent with EU’s approach, with milestones which reflect the fact that Guernsey, Isle of Man and Jersey are third countries.

During 2019/2020, the EC will draft technical specifications for the EU interconnection platform for registers of beneficial ownership. The three jurisdictions will liaise with the EC to ensure that they fully understand the legal and technical basis on which the EU Member States will share beneficial ownership information held in their BO registers with designated competent authorities and financial intelligence units (FIUs).

Each jurisdiction will then develop the necessary technical and legal infrastructure to enable the interconnection of each BO register with EU Member State registers and allow access to beneficial ownership information held in each jurisdiction without any restriction for designated competent authorities and FIUs., by the end of 2022.

Public access of BO information held on central registers is to made available thereafter to those with a legitimate interest, to be defined by domestic law as soon as reasonably practicable following establishment of the interconnected register and access for obliged entities.

If you would like further detail on the above, please contact Keith Rushen on 0207 486 2378.

 

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