Honourable Lorna Smith, Deputy Premier and Minister for Financial Services has pulled back on Beneficial Ownership Registers in the BVI in an effort to manage any human rights violation fallout on an international level  

The Minister stated that the BVI will not push to implement publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership in the financial services industry until all issues are fully vetted. The issue has been a point of contention with the UK for sometime now. 

There has been mounting pressure on financial services jurisdictions such as the BVI to implement the registers and make beneficial owners’ names public as it is believed this will prevent many people from hiding wealth in offshore jurisdictions.  However, In a recent statement, citing human rights violations, the Minister has said the Government will not rush ahead to implement publicly accessible registers because of last year’s ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ), which said such registers could infringe on people’s human rights. While the BVI doesn’t fall within the ambit of the ECJ the Minister said, she wants to ensure minimum legal risks for the Territory. 

“Transparency is key to this but so is respect for international law. The government will continue to undertake the technical work of designing and building systems that deliver on its commitment to implement a Publicly Accessible Register of Beneficial Ownership, consistent with the standards to be identified in the implementation review of the EU’s Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. But this will be done in a way that ensures its human rights obligations are met,” Minister Smith stated.

The ECJ ruling last year was a relief to many of the financial services jurisdictions.