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Battle Over Exempting Trusts From Public Registry Continues Between EU and U.K.
By Irene Madongo
printOn the eve of key behind-the-scenes talks on the Fourth European Union Anti-Money Laundering Directive, the rift over a proposal to publically name the owners of trusts has widened between the United Kingdom and Europe. Officials from the European Parliament, Commission and Council are set to meet Tuesday to discuss the plans in a "trialogue" meeting, according to a Brussels-based source close to the matter. Trialogues are informal and unpublicized discussions that play a key role in legislative proceedings. It is expected that a formal EU announcement on the matter will be made by December, however even that could be...
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A panel of European Union lawmakers Tuesday proposed requiring the bloc's member-states to share information on firms and trusts whose beneficial owners are required to pay taxes in other member-states.
Factions within the European Union reached a compromise Tuesday on the terms of the long-awaited Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive, including provisions to create central registers on the ultimate beneficial owners of corporate and other legal entities, as well as trusts in every member state.
Despite an ongoing push for greater financial transparency, few EU nations have signaled a willingness to require corporations and trusts to identify their owners, a nongovernmental group said in a report.
The U.K. is weighing amendments to its plan for a public registry of corporate owners that would allow individuals who control the firms to better protect their personal data.
Somewhere in a controversial EU fee for the U.K. disclosed Thursday lies something like an old saw, only it's not about how crime doesn't pay but how it costs, and in unexpected ways.
Intergovernmental 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.
European Union nations may still have to name the owners of corporations but they won't necessarily do so publicly, under the economic bloc's latest iteration of an anti-money laundering proposal.
As European Union leaders negotiate a final version of the bloc's latest anti-money laundering directive, questions remain on how its proponents will overcome legal and political hurdles to its implementation.
Even with the parliamentary passage of the EU's anti-money laundering directive last month, tough debates lie ahead for the economic bloc's plans to better identify financial criminals, say observers.
EU parliamentarians voted Tuesday to require member-states to update their laws targeting money launderers and the financiers of terrorism, in part by naming corporate owners.
A U.K. plan to name the owners of privately-held corporations will help shine a light on shell companies, but how revealing that effort will be remains uncertain.
The European Commission unveiled proposals Tuesday for a Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive that would require greater disclosures of beneficial ownership and increased scrutiny of domestic politicians, among other changes.
U.S. Treasury Department officials are weighing whether to exempt trusts and offer more flexibility on verification requirements in an upcoming proposal that would impose data collection duties on corporate accounts held at banks.
Europe's financial intelligence units are asking the European Commission for uniformity in their ability to suspend suspicious transactions under a forthcoming anti-money laundering directive, a Dutch official said Monday.