The Government of Bermuda has announced its intention to make the companies’ central register of beneficial ownership information accessible to the public. The beneficial ownership register contains information on the owners of the approximately 15,000 companies registered in Bermuda and has information such as the...
In response to the global Covid-19 outbreak, the Bermuda Registrar of Companies issued a notice on 20 March, 2020 in respect of Bermuda companies’ compliance obligations pursuant to the Economic Substance Act 2018 (the “Act”). All in-scope companies are still required to comply with the provisions...
On the 21 February 2020 at the presentation of the 2020/2021 budget statement the Minister of Finance confirmed the Government’s intention to introduce a bill that will reduce the required ownership of a local Bermudian company from 60% Bermudian to 40% Bermudian, while maintaining the...
In a recent judgment handed down by the Supreme Court of Bermuda, the Court re-affirmed the position with respect to abuse of process in winding up proceedings. In In the Matter of Full Apex (Holdings) Limited (Provisional Liquidators Appointed) [2019] SC (Bda) 87 Com...
Following on from the Government’s commitment to harmonize Bermuda’s economic substance regime with that of other major offshore jurisdictions, the Economic Substance Amendment (No. 2) Act 2019 (the “ESA Amendment Act”) was tabled on 29 November 2019. The ESA Amendment Act, together with anticipated revised Economic Substance Regulations (the “Regulations”, which it is understood should...
At the end of June 2019, the Government of Bermuda issued draft economic substance guidance notes. The aim of the guidance notes is to assist in determining whether entities are in scope of the requirements of the economic substance legislation and regulations, how to satisfy...
Bermuda was removed from the European Union (“EU”) list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions at the 17th May, 2019 meeting of the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (“ECOFIN”). Bermuda's commitment to implement tax good governance was confirmed in ECOFIN's official statement, which recognised that Bermuda has...
It is a general basic principle of company law that each company within a group of companies (even those owned and controlled by a parent or intermediate holding company) are separate legal entities. They cannot be lumped together for legal purposes, even if the holding...