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Lawmakers Reintroduce Beneficial Ownership Bill
By Matt Squire
printSenator Carl Levin reintroduced a bill Wednesday that would mandate that states collect information on the beneficial owners of corporations in an effort to stop shell company abuse. The bill, cosponsored by Sens. Charles Grassley, a Republican from Iowa, and Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, would also require states to turn over the data to law enforcement if subpoenaed. Levin introduced the same measure, then cosponsored by Senator Barack Obama, in May 2008 but it didn't pass out of committee. Under the measure, company formation agents would be required to implement anti-money laundering programs and individuals incorporating an organization...
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The leak of millions of records purporting to show widespread exploitation of offshore financial centers by global leaders, lenders and criminals is expected to draw governmental scrutiny of illicit finance, however unevenly.
A global anti-money laundering group Monday outlined how countries should identify corporate owners in an effort to stop criminals from hiding behind shell companies and other legal entities.
The Obama administration is pushing lawmakers to introduce legislation that would require corporations to obtain tax identification data that could be turned over to investigators.
U.S. officials will formally propose this month a long-planned rule that would require banks to identify the owners of their corporate clients, according to an Office of Management and Budget schedule.
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.
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 European Parliamentary committee Thursday approved far-reaching changes to the EU's rules combating money laundering and terrorist financing, including an amendment that would require nations to publicize 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.
British asset management firms are failing to adequately address their vulnerabilities to money laundering, bribery and corruption, the United Kingdom's chief financial regulator said Thursday.
British officials are set to propose legislation that would require private corporations and limited liability partnerships to publicly disclose their individual owners, a U.K. minister said Monday.
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.
Critics of a U.S. Treasury Department plan to strengthen beneficial ownership reporting by financial institutions aired their concerns to Obama administration officials at a rare public hearing Tuesday.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Wednesday that it was considering imposing customer due diligence currently applied to private banking and correspondent accounts to all accountholders at depository institutions.
The head of a powerful U.S. Senate panel is pushing to include new corporate transparency measures as part of broader financial reform legislation, according to former and current staffers.
The exploitation of shell companies by arms traffickers, terrorist financiers and other criminals represents a serious danger to U.S. national security, a high ranking U.S. Treasury Department official said Thursday.
U.S. lawmakers should require banks to discern the beneficial owners of the companies they provide accounts for, and determine whether the corporations have ties to corruption, anti-graft groups said Tuesday.
Financial regulation is in the early stages of undergoing its biggest change since the passage of the U.S. Patriot Act, according to Mike Flowers, a former counsel for the U.S. Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
A revamped state-lead proposal to create more transparency in how companies incorporate isn't a lot different from earlier drafts and would leave legal gaps that would allow criminal exploitation, say former law enforcement agents.
The National Association of Secretaries of State issued recommendations in July to create more transparency on the beneficial ownership of companies, including amending uniform business entity laws. The association estimated the changes could take almost two years to complete.
U.S. states have been criticized for not requiring corporations to disclose who their beneficial owners are, an issue Congress is tackling with legislation to make company formation agents comply with anti-money laundering regulations.