Transparency International New Zealand welcomes the Government’s intent to make it easier to see who owns and controls a company. We must apply the same standards to trusts.

Transparency International New Zealand welcomes the government’s intent to make it easier to see who owns and controls a company.

The Financial Action Task Force - the authoritative international policy-making body on money laundering - has recently proposed changes that would require countries to have beneficial ownership registries. Anti-corruption organisations have been vigorously advocating on the proposal.

The Pandora papers data leak brings renewed scrutiny to New Zealand’s role in the offshore industry exposed by an earlier leak, the Panama papers in 2016. Changes to the trust regime in 2017 appear to have reduced the use of New Zealand based offshore trusts for corrupt uses. The Financial Action Task Force and TINZ are calling for still more transparency.

Public registers of beneficial ownership were unthinkable a decade ago, but impact to date makes a strong case for global adoption. Transparency International shows real evidence of how these registers advance anti-corruption.

TI Australia calls for beneficial ownership disclosure and strengthened AML/CTF legislation in order to prevent Australia continuing as a major destination of the world’s dirty money.

After years of powerful resistance, the Financial Action Task Force members are now finally open to suggestions on ways to revise the global standard on beneficial ownership transparency. Here are 5 key fixes from Transparency International.

June Brain Food Webinar recap The aspirational outcome for this webinar is that we can build a team to bring about changes to the law, policies and practice around beneficial ownership, to better protect New Zealand from potentially massive impacts of international grand corruption.

On 1 January, 2021 the US Congress passed the Anti-Money Laundering Act of 2020 (AMLA), the first major money laundering reform in 20 years. The Act creates a beneficial ownership registry and modernises whistleblower protections.