RoC of the Cayman Fines Companies failing to Reveal Beneficial Owner’s Name
Cayman Island’s Registrar of Companies has begun penalizing the financial firms for not disclosing the names of the beneficial owners. They have failed to provide the authorities with accurate information on the identity of the beneficial owners and also ignored the warning letters when they were asked to do so. RoC has administered a fine of $5,000 against companies that have failed to comply with the Cayman Islands’ beneficial owner regime. Now they have been warned with cancellation of their company’s registration if they fail to pay the fines.
The Complace Head, Paul Inniss, has noted that the companies have been warned about their responsibility to reveal the identity of the beneficial owners to the authorities.
Innis said, “There are consequences to not maintaining current BO details with RoC, and these consequences are in line with Financial Action Task Force standards to fight money laundering, terrorist financing, and the financing of weapons of mass destruction. By enforcing our local legal requirement for companies to maintain current BO details with the RoC, Cayman can provide better information to international tax and law enforcement agencies for their investigations.”
The statement by the ministry also revealed that the service provider companies can also be fined if there is non-compliance linking to the beneficial owners. If they are not obliging with their legal duties to restrict the companies failing at compliances, then they must also face penalties.
Innis also added, “The Cayman Islands also receives information from international agencies for our own investigations, so we understand how valuable this information can be in fighting financial crime locally and globally.”
RoC is a competent authority in the Cayman Islands and has the power to enforce the compliance of the businesses. It comes under the office of the Ministry of Financial Services.
