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Spurred by the March 26^th approval of the UK’s “Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015” that aims to increase transparency around who ultimately owns and controls UK companies, TaxLinked.net will host a live panel on “Beneficial Ownership & Transparency.”

As of late, beneficial ownership transparency has been a hot topic in the world of finance. During the 2014 G20 Summit held in Brisbane, world leaders declared that financial transparency, in particular the transparency of beneficial ownership of legal persons and arrangements, is an extremely high priority. The UK, who’s at the forefront of this effort, took the first steps in the necessary direction by approving the aforementioned Act in March 2015. Overall, this regulation abolishes bearer shares and corporations acting as directors and establishes a central public registry of those individuals who hold significant control of UK companies. Furthermore, it requires companies to identify those “persons with significant control” (PSCs) over the business and maintain a proper register of those individuals, a move that has been mirrored by the European Parliament and Council in the final version of its “Fourth Money Laundering Directive” to be issued later this summer.

We are very excited to announce that our event will be held on Monday, June 29^th at 11:00 am BST and will feature an esteemed panel of experts on taxation law and justice, anti-corruption and money laundering campaigns, business structuring and asset protection, among others.

Our group of Panellists includes:

	Alex Cobham, Director of Research at the Tax Justice Network, an independent international think tank that strives to change the way tax havens and financial globalization are handled across the globe. Alex’s areas of expertise are taxation, horizontal and vertical inequality, and illicit financial flows.
	Robert Palmer, Campaign Leader of Global Witness’ effort to curtail anonymous companies, corruption and money laundering. Besides his work for Global Witness as a policy analyst, Robert has served as Chair and Vice-Chair for the Financial Transparency Coalition, a global network aimed at curbing illicit financial flows and promoting transparency.
	Maxim Shvidkiy, Managing Director of SHFM Overseas in Malmo, Sweden, an international firm specializing in fiduciary asset ownership, human resource management, asset protection and business structuring. Maxim has more than 13 years of experience in the field, having served various roles in multinational companies such as Coca-Cola HBC, Ernst & Young, Continental Corporation and Intesa Sanpaolo.
	Peter Wilson, Tax Partner at Simmons Gainsford Global Tax LLP. Currently, he focuses on cross-border tax advice and implementation for global multinational enterprises, owner managed businesses and high net worth individuals including non-domicile and international tax for companies in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
	Our Moderator will be TaxLinked.net member Geraldine Noel of Acumum - Legal & Advisory, a Malta-based law firm that provides services to high net worth individuals, corporations, family offices and law firms in Malta, the UK, the US, Switzerland and the Cayman Islands.

Given the panel’s diversity, the event will cover a wide array of issues including:

• Challenges to be faced by both clients and firms once the UK law comes into effect.
• The EU Council’s endorsed proposals for a central register.
• Advice to “persons with significant control” (PSCs) that have doubts or concerns regarding this regulation.
• Viewpoints on the proportion of anonymous companies, trusts and foundations that have a legitimate purpose.

The main TaxLinked page for this event can be found HERE.

To register for this event, please click HERE.

To submit a question to our panellists, please post on the forum thread HERE.

Also, one of our panellists, Alex Cobham, has been interviewed as part of our Spotlight feature. To read what Alex has to say about beneficial ownership, click HERE.

We’re looking forward to what is amounting to be a fantastic event.