Financial Transparency Coalition

London, October 31, 2013 - David Cameron is expected to become the first leader of any country to commit to introducing a public register to reveal the true beneficial owner of companies. The Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC) strongly welcomes this move, as we have been calling on world leaders to put these public registries in place since our founding in 2009. We believe public registers of beneficial ownership will go a long way towards reducing corruption, money laundering and tax evasion.

BRUSSELS - Money launderers, corrupt politicians, tax dodgers and traffickers of all sorts rely on the same things to move their ill-gotten gains. They need legal structures that allow them to hide their identity. This often happens through anonymous companies whose beneficial ownership is hidden. European leaders have a unique chance to curb these shell companies in the ongoing review of the European Union’s anti-money laundering rules. To ensure cash or assets are efficiently processed, corrupt officials and politicians require professional bankers, lawyers and accountants willing to help them.

In the third season of Showtime’s drama Homeland, the CIA is working to track the finances of a terrorist group through a maze of shell corporations and offshore accounts from Iran to Venezuela. This isn’t just a Hollywood plotline. It is, unfortunately, all too real. Terrorists, drug traffickers, corrupt politicians, and criminals easily move money around the globe every single day. They use shell corporations, which have no assets or operations and exist simply to conduct business transactions.

Terrorists, drug traffickers, corrupt politicians and criminals easily move money around the globe every single day. They use shell corporations, which have no assets or operations and exist simply to conduct business transactions. Shell corporations serve no legitimate business purpose other than to hide their true owners and officers. They enable brutal dictators in Equatorial Guinea and Uzbekistan; terrorist groups, such as Hezbollah; and drug lords to hide their profits from crime and corruption.