A few days ago, the British Parliament voted to compel Britain’s overseas territories (OTs) in the Caribbean to adopt public registers of company ownership.
The decision, which has been condemned by the states concerned, has multiple implications. It ignores their sovereignty, disenfranchises locally elected legislatures, undercuts economic development, harms post hurricane recovery, and has consequences for the Caribbean more generally. It raises too, longer-term questions about the future shape of the region and the eventual global place of what, on the whole, are relatively wealthy micro-states.
As has been widely reported, a Parliamentary amendment to the UK’s Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill was introduced into the House of Commons on May 1 by a cross-party group of legislators, and reluctantly accepted by Britain’s minority Conservative government.