Descriptive Notes And Contents List

Offshore jurisdictions have traditionally advertised privacy as one of their key attractions to international investors.

In the last few years, however, greater transparency has been one of the goals pursued by international organisations such as the OECD, the FATF, and the EU, and while before the events of September 11th 2001 it was possible for offshore jurisdictions to claim that this was merely a disguised attempt on the part of the high-tax countries to undermine competition from the low-tax countries, after September this attitude became much less sustainable.

The aim of this survey is to examine the situation in depth in a number of the most prominent jurisdictions. There is a wealth of legislation which impacts on secrecy, and in the case of each country we look at the different types of legislation and regulation which apply: at the national level there is banking legislation, and in many cases 'know-your-customer' legislation, while internationally there are bilateral mutual assistance treaties, exchange of information treaties, and tax treaties.