UK agrees to ‘only legitimate interests access’ to VI’s company registers
In November 2022; however, the European Union Court of Justice ruled that registers containing the personal details of the owners of a company and accessible to the general public is an infringement of fundamental rights of privacy and personal data protection.
Nevertheless, the UK continued to push their Overseas Territories to implement public registers, even though the UK was no longer a part of the European Union (EU).
Now comes news that the Overseas Territories, while at the Joint Ministerial Conference (JMC) in London last week, were able to secure an agreement with the United Kingdom to introduce Registers of Beneficial Ownership on a legitimate interest access basis.
This has been hailed as a “good victory” by Premier and Minister of Finance Dr the Honourable Natalio D. Wheatley (R7), who holds the portfolio for financial services.
“We know that the United Kingdom government, in previous parliaments, they pushed for full public registers.
“And we were resolute that we couldn’t do the full registers because of concerns on privacy and our constitutional rights. So that was a real victory for us here. That was one of the areas we were able to conciliate on,” Premier Wheatley disclosed to Acting Director of Communications Karia J. Christopher in an interview on Friday, November 22, 2024, in London.
‘We came back with the goods’- Premier
The Premier was commenting on some of the successes of attending the JMC.
“So right now we would be having only legitimate interest access to our registers, in line with our constitutional obligations,” Dr Wheatley said.
The Premier also said the OTs, including the Virgin Islands, were able to “secure a lot” as it pertains to climate resilience as well as constitutional advancements.
“We were able to deliver a lot for the BVI. It wasn’t just a trip it was a trip where we came back with the goods,” Dr Wheatley stated.
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5 Responses to “UK agrees to ‘only legitimate interests access’ to VI’s company registers”
End the war on drugs, stop supporting this black list because nations accused of genocide are able to do business while nations accused of relocating children out of harms way are black listed. This reminds me of them saying black people have no soul as a means to take what they want. Who decided who has a soul or not?