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Commented on: 21 March 2019 13:11 GMT

This comment is simply untrue:

"Guernsey , Jersey , Alderney , British Virgin Islands , Isle of Man , Bermuda and more , all Crown dependencies , all subject to little or no money laundering regulation . Legislation to make them reveal beneficial owners was recently fought off by the UK Gov't , kicked into yet more long grass"

Guernsey and Alderney (its one jurisdiction for these purposes) has very robust anti-money laundering regulations and far greater likelihood of regulatory enforcement than the UK. The Crown Dependencies, which do not include Bermuda, the BVI or anywhere else other than Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man, all have anti money laundering regulations that quite clearly are better enforced than the UK (I can't think of a firm in Guernsey that won't have had their policies and procedures inspected by the regulator, which doesn't appear to be the case for thousands of UK firms).

Beneficial ownership records are collected on a much more rigorous basis than the UK, they are just not made available to journalists and the like, just to governmental organisations. The legislation to "make them" (?) reveal beneficial ownership was likely to result in a constitutional issue as the UK government accepts that it has no mandate to legislate on such issues in jurisdictions, such as the Crown Dependencies, with internal legislative competence, the actions of the sponsors of the amendment were ignorant and ill informed. The author of this statement appears to know very little of the actual facts and appears to be trotting out the usual ignorant propaganda.