Consequences for regulatory breaches still vary widely
between jurisdictions, particularly when it comes to offshore
financial centers. For businesses with a global footprint, this
makes a strong case for global standards to manage this
unpredictability.
Despite cross-border cooperation between regulators and global
regulatory trends, substantial differences in standards persist,
which opens the door to regulatory arbitrage. These differences
exist not only between offshore and onshore jurisdictions, but
between offshore jurisdictions themselves. Some, such as those in
the Channel Islands, have regulatory regimes that match and,
arguably, surpass in many cases, the standards of the major onshore
centers. Others, not so much.
