Beneficial Ownership Act 2017

Background

Over the last few years increasing pressure has been put on the Isle of Man and other International financial centres to be more transparent over the beneficial ownership of companies incorporated under their laws.

In response to this, the Isle of Man Government enacted the Beneficial Ownership Act 2017.

Section 6 requires every locally incorporated corporate entity (except listed companies) to appoint a “Nominated Officer”.

For locally owned companies the Nominated Officer is generally one of the Isle of Man resident directors or shareholders and for companies owned by non residents the Corporate Service Provider is appointed by default.

Section 11 requires the Nominated Officer to enter the details (name, address, date of birth, nationality, date interest acquire and nature & percentage of the interest) of every ‘Registerable Beneficial Owner’ (being a person holding more than 25% directly or indirectly) of an Isle of Man corporate entity onto the beneficial ownership database.

Section 9 imposes a duty on the legal owners of every entity to provide the Nominated Officer with the information required to complete the database.

If the information is not submitted then an offence is committed and, ultimately, the entity can be struck off the Registrar by the Government.

The information on the beneficial ownership database is not accessible to the public but it is available to the Isle of Man Government and certain law enforcement & statutory agencies in the UK.