{"id":22751,"date":"2014-12-18T23:46:09","date_gmt":"2014-12-18T22:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/?p=22751"},"modified":"2014-12-18T23:46:09","modified_gmt":"2014-12-18T22:46:09","slug":"laundering-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/laundering-money\/","title":{"rendered":"Laundering Money?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nicolas Hirst writes:\u00a0 Members of the public will have the\u00a0right to find out\u00a0who is\u00a0behind complex corporate structures, shell companies and letterbox firms, under new rules to combat money laundering and tax avoidance agreed by European Union lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Under the deal, member states will be required to maintain central registers with details\u00a0of\u00a0the owners of all companies based in\u00a0their territory. The registers will be accessible to any member of the public who\u00a0can show a \u201clegitimate public interest\u201d.<\/p>\n

Although member states will have to compile registers of the beneficial owners of trusts, these will not be accessible to the public.<\/p>\n

The reforms follow on from the \u2018Lux Leaks\u2019 revelations earlier this year that laid bare the tax affairs of hundreds of companies that moved to Luxembourg to enjoy sweetheart tax deals.<\/p>\n

Central registers will also make it much more difficult for criminals to launder money within the EU.<\/p>\n

Kri\u0161j\u0101nis Kari\u0146\u0161, a Latvian centre-right MEP, who led negotiations along\u00a0with Sargentini, said: \u201cFor years, criminals in Europe have used the anonymity of offshore companies and accounts to obscure their financial dealings. Creating registers of beneficial ownership will help to lift the veil of secrecy of offshore accounts and greatly aid the fight against money laundering and blatant tax evasion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The European Parliament estimates that money laundering affects between 2%-5% of global gross domestic product\u00a0each year.<\/p>\n

Although campaigners welcomed the creation of centralised registers, some expressed concern that they would not be freely available to all\u00a0members of the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cRequiring the public to prove a \u2018legitimate interest\u2019 is contradictory to the idea of transparency, and places all the burden on the public, rather than the potential criminals who are treating the European financial system like their personal launderette,\u201d said Nienke Palstra, a policy officer at Transparency International.<\/p>\n

There is also doubt about whether the register will be accessible to non-EU citizens wishing to trace funds hidden by corrupt political leaders.<\/p>\n

O<\/em>ne motivation for creating the central registers had been the revelation that the son of Viktor Yanukovych, president of Ukraine in 2010-14, had hidden money in a company in the Netherlands \u2013 transfers that were revealed because of\u00a0a detailed investigation by a Ukrainian civil society organisation.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian prosecutors have since charged Oleksandr Yanukovych with embezzlement.<\/p>\n

The proposal to introduce public registers faced opposition from several member states, in particular Germany. France and the United Kingdom were strong proponents of public registers, although the UK fought hard to ensure that these did not include trusts.<\/p>\n

Under the deal, the centralised registers will give details of the owners\u2019 names, country of residence, nationality, month and year of birth, and the nature and extent of the beneficial interest held.<\/p>\n

\"Bank<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nicolas Hirst writes:\u00a0 Members of the public will have the\u00a0right to find out\u00a0who is\u00a0behind complex corporate structures, shell companies and letterbox firms, under new rules to combat money laundering and tax avoidance agreed by European Union lawmakers. Under the deal, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-finance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t