Ensuring the Security of Offshore Company Owners
One of the most important advantages of offshore companies is the ability to conceal the names of the true owners of the business – the beneficial owners. This opportunity is realised through the mechanism of so-called “Nominee Shareholders”, who are usually citizens of offshore jurisdictions and hold shares for the benefit of the beneficiary for a certain fee.
To ensure the interests of the true owners of the business, the nominee shareholders sign a special document called a “Declaration of Trust”, which states that the nominee shareholder transfers all the shares of the company to a person who may not be specified, signed by the “nominee”, and the date, as well as the name of the new owner, are missing. This document is held by the beneficiary, who at any time can enter his name or the name of the new nominee there, put the date and thus change the owner of the company to himself or another person.
In addition to the mechanism of nominee shareholders, some offshore jurisdictions generally provide for the absence of registers of shareholders, that is, in principle, there is no such place or document where you can see the names of shareholders or business owners. In those offshores where registers of shareholders exist, as a rule, the mechanism of access “from outside” is extremely difficult at the level of legislation, which requires the company to be found guilty under a serious article by a local court in order to disclose the register. And since it is quite difficult for a company that is generally prohibited from doing business in the territory of an offshore company to commit a crime there, the level of confidentiality still remains very high.
An obstacle to complete anonymity when doing business from offshore is the need to open accounts with banks, which, obeying the “Know Your Customer” rule, always want to know who exactly is the ultimate beneficiary of the money. The solution in this situation may be structures from legal entities registered in different jurisdictions, some of which own others. However, to use such schemes, you need to be able to know or at least assume the behaviour pattern of the financial institution with which you are working, and it is even better to have a well-established interaction with it, since in most cases banks treat such schemes with great suspicion.
In addition, since nominee shareholders and nominee directors are ordinary people with their own shortcomings and weaknesses, one can never guarantee their reliability. However, risks can be minimised by working only with trusted registrars who guarantee the integrity of their counterparties.
In order to properly ensure your safety, we recommend that you consult with our specialists before ordering services.
