For decades, transparency was obscured through the use of multi-part structures, layering trusts, foundations and companies, using nominees and men of straw to pose as owners or controllers.

The introduction at the suggestion of the Financial Action Task Force of the now almost universal marker of ownership – the 25% threshold – and the requirement to declare beneficial ownership to national authorities, has not proven particularly effective. It is the work of a moment to adjust a holding to 24.99%.

Perhaps sensing that time is running out for such games, the offshore financial services industry has raised the campaign for beneficial ownership concealment and avoidance to a whole new level, creating ownerless “chimeric” entities and, in the case of the adaptation of blockchain and cryptocurrency transactions, literally moving to a higher, meta-jurisdictional plane.

Paul Beckett presents his critique of the strategies employed.

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