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As Beneficial Ownership Initiatives Advance, Academics Argue for Another Way
By Irene Madongo
printIntergovernmental plans to better identify corporate owners will do little to thwart financial crooks, even at great cost to banks and governments, according to an academic report on offshore financial flows. The paper, entitled Moving Money: International Financial Flows, Taxes & Money Laundering, takes aim at the notion that offshore financial centers are inherently harmful to society. The push to name beneficial owners of corporations "would be exceptionally difficult to implement in such a way as to catch actual 'bad guys' intent on avoiding detection," the report said. What's more, recommendations by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the...
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