The Government of Anguilla has moved to update and strengthen a series of financial services legislation. The aim is to avoid the island being blacklisted by the European-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
In an effort to satisfy the requirements of the OECD/EU, the Government passed a number of amended bills in the Anguilla House of Assembly on Tuesday, January 26, when they were given their second and third readings. The draft bills were previously taken to public consultation more than a week ago — after receiving their first readings.
Apart from meeting the requirements of the OECD, the Government of Anguilla is working to develop the island’s financial services as an additional industry to tourism. Over the years, Anguilla has made a number of strides towards this objective using the innovative and quick ACORN registration system, but there has been a fall-off in the number of company registrations — as well as the negative interventions by the OECD.
“The legislation and amendments, now coming to the House of Assembly, are to make it right so that we can make submissions to the OECD for review — in order to get off the blacklist of the European Union,” Premier Webster and Minister of Finance, stated. “We can then market ourselves as a jurisdiction and, by that way, develop our financial services industry to be above board and open for review. We also are to meet the MOU requirements of June 11, 2020, which stated that we should go through a larger compliance status.”
The legislation passed comprises the Companies (Amendment) Act, 2021; the Company Management (Amendment) Act, 2021; the International Business Companies (Amendment) Act, 2021; and the Limited Liability Company (Amendment) Act, 2021.
