More opposition to the Companies and Trusts Bills

Well, don't say that the Robing Room didn't warn you. Today the Association of Seychelles Accountants, whose Chairman is the much respected Chartered Accountant Mr Bernard Pool, circulated its comments on the proposed Companies Bill 2011 and gave it an overwhelming thumbs down. Amongst many other points, they too found it curious that the Companies Bill sought to remove the proprietary company. They also pointed out that the Bill did not serve the recommendations of the OECD. The Bar Association of Seychelles had already commented on the bill since February 21. Their comments may be viewed here.

The Bar Association of Seychelles also released its comments on the proposed Trusts Bill 2011 today. Rejecting it in even stronger terms than the Companies Bill, 2011. They noted that the concept of trusts is incompatible with the Seychelles legal regime. The Bar Association also noted that this Trusts Bill would allow the true identities of the shareholders of IBC's to be hidden even further, which goes against the recommendations of the OECD on more information on the owners of offshore entities.

Today was the deadline for the public to comment on the 3 bills that were on display on the SIBA website. As far as the Robing Room is aware, it appears that no organization had the time to come out with a position paper on the International Corporate Service Providers Bill, 2011. That said, this bill would have affected the members of SAOPRA (the association of corporate service providers) more than anyone else.

In fact it was SAOPRA that led the charge against the Bills by managing to arrange a meeting with the proponents of the Bill only a day or two after the advertisements for comments came out. And although members of the bar were invited to attend, the vast majority decided to boycott the meeting, which the bar believed would have been held only so that the proponents of the bills could tell the higher ups that they did "hold consultations" with the main stakeholders. A few years ago, workshops were held on the Securities Act 2007 and despite some lawyers (the real ones) pointing out some obvious flaws in the piece of legislation, nothing was ever done to correct the flaws and today the Seychelles stock market can be found at... oh wait... there isn't one.

The Robing Room is the official blog of the Seychelles Legal Environment Website (sites.google.com/site/theseychelleslegalenvironment), the only website about the Seychelles Legal Environment that is constantly updated.