Global standards are hoping to create further disclosures of beneficial ownership of trusts and other entities to reduce cross-border fraud and tax avoidance. The UK’s response to these reforms mostly becomes effective in January, which should make it easier for forensic and business valuation experts to track hidden assets.

To do this, the UK has enhanced the process of collecting and disclosing information on people with significant control (PSCs) via the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act in 2016. Initially, reformers wanted the corporate register to show the name of the trust, the trustees, and the beneficial owners of the trust. While only true in a small minority of schemes, an argument was successfully made that the publication of such names might expose vulnerable beneficiaries.

The reformed rules, therefore, call for the corporate register, where the beneficial owner is a trust, to provide public access (not only access by the competent authorities at HMRC and elsewhere) to:

• The name of the trust;
• The names of the trustees; and
• Only anyone who has the “right to exercise, or actually exercises, significant influence or control over the activities” of the trust or company.

The regulations require UK LLCs, LLPs, and overseas holding companies to hold information on their own beneficial ownership and to respond to any reasonable public request for information from the register as well as file beneficial ownership information with the national registrar of companies.

Perhaps as importantly, Jersey, Guernsey, and the Isle of Man have confirmed that they will voluntarily adopt public registers of beneficial owners by 2023, providing a further source for financial experts who need to identify the ownership of hard-to-track business assets.