Attorney General Kathy Simmons. (Photograph by Akil Simmons)
Bermuda will make its beneficial ownership register public when all members of the G20 are required to do so, Attorney-General Kathy Simmons said today.
She told the Senate the island would “certainly comply” at that point and would, in the meantime, continue to encourage other countries to come up to the level of the “Bermuda standard”.
The beneficial ownership register, which holds information on the real owners of Bermuda-based companies, is held by the Bermuda Monetary Authority.
The BMA shares information from the register with other tax authorities — but it is not a public document.
Senator Simmons outlined comments she made at the 5th Annual Caribbean and Latin American Corporate Counsel Summit 2017 in Miami last month.
She said she told the summit how Bermuda was dealing with media coverage of the Paradise Papers hack — a leak of millions of documents from Bermuda-founded international law firm Appleby.
Ms Simmons added: “I let the assembly know that Bermuda is not a tax haven and is not a jurisdiction to hide money.
“Bermuda has a fair, strong and robust regulatory and legislative framework that is internationally known to be compliant with the ever changing international standards.
“I also spoke to Bermuda’s reputation as being one that stands equal to any international measurement and, in some cases, exceeds the regulatory rigour of our critics.”
