beneficial owners

USA fluffs its companies database which it doesn't need anyway.

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The USA is, at the best of times, very good at shouting that it's a leader in combating money laundering but it's all mouth and no trousers, most of the time.

Take, for example, the noise it has made about so-called "beneficial owners" of companies, a misuse of the term that goes back to, at least, 1980s Senate Hearings into the laundering of the proceeds of drugs trafficking and the use of shell and offshore companies. 40 years on, the USA has still done nothing about it and all the signs are that nothing is going to happen soon. ADDENDUM: Comment by Jim Richards.

Here's the irony: FinCEN doesn't need to build and maintain a database at all, especially as the law restricts access to the data it holds, so voiding any KYC benefit it may have across the world.

FCRO Subsection:

Financial Crime Risk Officers - OpEd

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FinCEN flip-flops over so-called Beneficial Ownership Rule for Legal Entity Customers

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FinCEN can't make its mind up. On 16 May this year, FinCEN granted to covered financial institutions a 90 day exception from the requirement to comply with the " Beneficial Ownership Rule for Legal Entity Customers." Leaving aside the fact that, as with the UK's draft Bill, the term "Beneficial Owner" has been co-opted from an entirely different area of law and is therefore a cause for confusion, FinCEN Is up to its old tricks of mitigating the effect of a Rule while pretending that the USA has a strong counter-money laundering regime. The 90 days is up and, guess, what? FinCEN has extended it. What is going on?

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UK "proposes the introduction of a register of the beneficial owners of overseas legal entities that own land in the UK. " Part II

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See Part I

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UK "proposes the introduction of a register of the beneficial owners of overseas legal entities that own land in the UK. " Part I

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The announcement of a new consultation begs a question: if the register will apply to those who own "land," i.e. real estate, what about those who own property in long leases (i.e. personalty and not land) in the great estates of London which are, after all, some of the most expensive property in the world. WMLR digs into the proposed Bill to investigate this and other issues.

Consultation: https://www.gov.uk/government/...
Announced 23 July 2018 Closes 17 September 2018

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