The Cayman Islands Government has seen the Court of Justice of the European Union’s recent judgement regarding business registers in Luxembourg.

At present, the Ministry of Financial Services and Commerce is preparing draft legislation to consolidate beneficial ownership legislation into one Act and is currently in the consultation phase with a wide cross section of the financial services industry and considering their feedback to date.

The intent of the draft legislation is to enhance the transparency framework for legal persons by providing clarity to all users of the beneficial ownership legislation, to reduce the possibility of misuse of our entities as well as ensure efficiency in the framework. 

There is also a component of the draft legislation that sets out a proposed approach to introduce public beneficial ownership registers in line with the request of the United Kingdom. The Ministry, with the assistance of external counsel, is currently reviewing the ECJ judgement to determine if there are any implications with respect to the proposal to introduce public beneficial ownership registers.