One country considered high risk for money laundering and three medium-risk nations are negotiating to share company ownership records with the world's first open access, cross-border database of corporate beneficiaries, say sources.
U.K. lawmakers will attempt to force the government to improve corporate transparency in its overseas, semi-autonomous jurisdictions, but could end up hindering the passage of key anti-money laundering legislation in the process, sources told ACAMS moneylaundering.com.
The British government has rejected calls by lawmakers to impose more-stringent corporate transparency standards on U.K. overseas territories and dependencies, claiming that the jurisdictions are already "well ahead" of other international tax havens.
The British government should compel its offshore territories and dependencies to publicly disclose corporate ownership data in a bid to prevent tax avoidance, a parliamentary group said in a report Thursday.
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