Regulatory Compliance: Bermuda Economic Substance And AML/ATF Regimes

Regulatory compliance has seen developments at a global scale over recent years, with continued focus on tax evasion and anti-money laundering (AML)/anti-terrorist financing (ATF).

Regulators in Bermuda face on-going scrutiny from international organisations – such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OCED) and Caribbean Financial Action Task Force (CFATF) – regarding compliance with international regulatory standards. As a result, Bermuda regulators have been increasingly active in pursuing enforcement action under the various regulatory regimes. Of the various regulatory regimes, we highlight the following two areas as issues that entities should be particularly mindful of due to the current enforcement trends (primarily the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) and the Registrar of Companies (Registrar)):