Confidential Relationships Law To Be Repealed

The Government of the Cayman Islands has this week gazetted a bill to repeal the statute that has frequently – and mistakenly – been described as Cayman's banking secrecy law. The Confidential Relationships (Preservation) Law was originally enacted in the 1970s, when Cayman as a financial centre was in its infancy. In essence, all it does is to overlay criminal penalties on disclosures of confidential information that in most cases would be actionable by civil proceedings in any event. However, in the 40 years of the Law's existence, no-one has ever been prosecuted, and the only part of the Law that is commonly used is section 4, which enables a person who intends or is being required to disclose confidential information in evidence in proceedings (whether in Cayman or elsewhere) to get the approval of the Court to so doing.