By Peter Larder, the Managing Director of the AMS
Group in the British Virgin Islands (BVI)
For many years the trust industry has used Private Trust
Companies (PTCs) in situations in which a family trust or group of
family trusts was involved. International financial centres (IFCs)
have approached the regulation of PTCs in a variety of ways, but
have chosen primarily either to issue restricted trust licenses, or
to ignore the license requirement. The sometimes high cost of the
former route has been a deterrent to clients in certain IFCs and
the complete lack of regulation in others has similarly been seen
as out of step in the modern era of transparency and
compliance.
The British Virgin Islands has looked carefully at the issues
involved and in August 2007 provided clarity through the enactment
of the Financial Services (Exemption) Regulations, 2007.
('Exemption Regulations'). In the creation of this Act the
BVI has successfully recognised the need for an
