Labour leader invited to Jersey to “learn the facts” over broadsheet broadside

Monday 09 February 2015

Ed Miliband will once again be invited to Jersey to talk to financial services regulators and politicians after he attacked the Island as a “tax haven” in the press over the weekend, in what is likely to be the first of a theme of attacks in the run-up to the May elections.

Chief Minister Ian Gorst says that the Labour Party leader was invited to Jersey before to find out the facts after a previous attack, and now he says that the invitation will be re-issued.

In a letter apparently sent to the heads of the Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories, Mr Miliband has threatened to put offshore centres on an international blacklist within six months of a Labour government taking office unless they produce a public register of offshore company owners.

But Jersey’s government has responded saying that information on beneficial ownership (or “who really owns what”) has been available to tax authorities and law enforcement for many years – and that Jersey is in fact ahead of the UK in this respect – and they have also pointed out that the OECD rates the Island at the same level as the UK, the US and Germany in terms of exchanging information with other countries.

They also say that the World Bank has recognised Jersey as “a leader” in setting standards for beneficial ownership information for tax purposes. 

Geoff Cook, the chief executive of Jersey Finance, said that information on who really owned what was already available to law enforcement and tax authorities – he said there would be no point in the kind of public register that Mr Miliband was calling for.

He said: “Jersey has captured beneficial ownership information on a corporate registry since 1999 and this information is available to law enforcement agencies. Its Financial Services Commission (JFSC) regularly undertakes rigorous on-site examinations of businesses to assess compliance.

“Given there is ready access and availability of beneficial ownership information to foreign fiscal and investigative authorities, the industry does not believe there is further benefit in pursuing a public register.

“Furthermore, Jersey’s ability to capture ownership information of companies is far ahead of those available in other onshore and offshore jurisdictions including the UK, which is so far alone in calling for a public registry.

“Indeed, at the last meeting of G20 nations, one of the key findings on beneficial ownership was an endorsement of the current Financial Action Task Force (FATF) approach which is to ensure that the true owners of value are known, that this information is readily available and that it can be exchanged between governments without undue difficulty.”