The British Overseas Territories (BOTs) will be required by the UK government to introduce publicly accessible registers of people with significant control over companies based in those territories.
The new measure will be introduced by way of an amendment to the UK's Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering.
The Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill amendment will allow the government to impose a requirement to introduce "publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership of companies" on BOTs that do not take action voluntarily.
BOTs would have until 31 December 2020 to act before the UK government would be able to take action.
The measures will not apply to the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. The affected countries are:
- Anguilla
- Bermuda
- British Antarctic Territory
- British Indian Ocean Territory
- British Virgin Islands
- Cayman Islands
- Falkland Islands
- Gibraltar
- Montserrat
- Pitcairn Islands
- Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha
- South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
- Turks and Caicos Islands.
This is another step forward taken by the UK in the fight against corruption, money laundering and tax evasion.
The forgotten right to privacy.....