Each year the elected leaders of Britain’s overseas territories (OTs) gather from around the world to meet with British ministers in London. Their objective is to discuss the continuing partnership with the UK, to establish priorities and to try to resolve differences.
For the most part the issues covered at this year’s December 1-2 Joint Ministerial Council (JMC) while significant, were largely functional and unexceptional, but there were four areas in a Caribbean context where important commitments were made by both sides.
The first was in relation to the vexed question of Britain’s insistence on being able to obtain the details of the beneficial owners of offshore trusts and funds registered in its OTs through the establishment a central public registry. Here, progress was made. Both sides were able to agree, after a discussion described by the Cayman Premier, Alden McLaughlin, as being at times “intense and strained”.
Prior to their arrival in London both he and the Premier of the BVI, Orlando Smith, saw Britain’s prescriptive approach as potentially undermining their robust and well-managed financial services economy. At the meeting however, a “shared understanding” emerged which suggests a new more flexible view by the UK on the provision of such information. What was agreed, in the words of the communiqué, was an approach that will enable the UK’s OTs to hold beneficial ownership information in their
