Roger Godsiff – 2015 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Roger Godsiff on 2015-11-06.

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment he has made of Bermuda’s progress in introducing a public register of beneficial ownership since June 2013.

James Duddridge

We have asked the Bermudian authorities to meet the following criteria: a) UK law enforcement and tax authorities must be able to access company beneficial ownership information without restriction, subject to relevant safeguards; b) These competent authorities should be able to quickly identify all companies that a particular beneficial owner has a stake in without needing to submit multiple and repeated requests; and c) Companies or their beneficial owners must not be alerted to the fact that an investigation is underway. We are continuing our dialogue with the Bermudan authorities on this and have offered any technical support that might be required as they develop their proposals My Rt Hon Friend, the Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Philip Hammond MP), Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, met with Premier Dunkley on 26 August in London.