A chance to take the initiative
ASIDE from the general good feeling which will have inevitably been translated across the water from the outcome of Jersey’s Moneyval assessment is a piece of news which, should it be replicated, should be shouted loudly from local rooftops all the way to the City of London and Westminster in particular.
As the Government of Jersey picked out: ‘Jersey is praised for the accuracy and transparency of beneficial ownership information for legal persons and arrangements, with the report recognising the range of mitigating measures in place to reduce risk which occur in few other countries.’
One could assume that Guernsey will receive similar praise for its arrangements, and it is this which should be seized upon when the moment is right.
As argued previously, the Moneyval report tends only to be of interest when it is critical. Clean bills of health impress few and don’t demand column inches and air time.
But this is just the kind of messaging that Guernsey and the other Crown Dependencies need and this time it won’t just be a local promotional agency saying it, but a respected, feared even, European regulator.
If we can’t get Westminster to take such evidence seriously, to challenge the tired rhetoric used to back up the pressure to clamp down on us, what will it take?