CFP Hits Out At OECD Shipping Initiative

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

03 July 2003

The Center for Freedom and Prosperity (CFP) has hit out at an OECD attempt to increase oversight of the global shipping industry.

In a review published by its Maritime Transport Committee in March, the OECD announced that:

'The study has found that it is very easy, and comparatively cheap, to establish a complex web of corporate entities to provide very effective cover to the identities of beneficial owners who do not want to be known...The most common and effective mechanisms that can provide anonymity for beneficial owners include bearer shares, nominee shareholders, nominee directors, the use of intermediaries to act on owners' behalf and the failure of jurisdictions to provide for effective reporting requirements.'

It continued:

'Open registers, which by definition do not have any nationality requirements, are the easiest jurisdictions in which to register vessels that are covered by complex legal and corporate arrangements. The arrangements will almost certainly cover a number of international jurisdictions which would be much more difficult to untangle.'

The CFP dismissed concerns that open shipping registries pose a security risk, arguing that the low-cost registries offered by jurisdictions such as Liberia, Panama, and the Bahamas provide 'vigorous and necessary competition to restrictive national registries'.

The think-tank went on to add that the OECD's treatment of shipping registries will be one of the major topics under discussion at its forthcoming Tax Competition Forum, which will be held in Panama on July 15.

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