Scrutiny on offshore transactions and their participants is at an all-time high. Through an ever growing number of regulations and laws, parties to transactions and third party providers from banks to corporate service providers are required to gather and, in some circumstances, share information with governments and regulatory authorities.     For the underlying officers and […]

The Marshall Islands, following the lead of other offshore jurisdictions such as Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands, has introduced an economic substance regime effective 1 January 2019 in response to the work of the OECD and the European Union on fair taxation. The legislation has since been twice amended and supplemented by guidelines which were last updated in January 2020.

The guidelines provide some clarity to the international business community in interpreting the regulations, especially for shipping and pure holding companies, with further clarification provided on the launch of the reporting portal on 1 July 2020.  We have provided an updated overview.