Shopping for Anonymous Shell Companies: An Audit Study of Anonymity and Crime in the International Financial System
Shopping for Anonymous Shell Companies: An Audit Study of Anonymity and Crime in the International Financial System
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购买匿名空壳公司：国际金融体系中匿名和犯罪的审计研究
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发表时间：
2010
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通讯作者：
J. Sharman
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作者：
J. Sharman
过去几年，我们看到了一场确保全球金融和银行系统“透明”的国际运动，这意味着系统内的每个参与者和交易都可以追溯到一个独立的、可识别的个人。我提交了一份关于遵守对匿名空壳公司禁令的审计研究。特别是，我描述了我试图在没有身份证明的情况下找到匿名公司工具，然后为这些工具建立公司银行账户。（通过这种“空壳公司”的公司账户进行的交易实际上是无法追踪的，因此对于那些想要隐藏犯罪利润、支付或接受贿赂、资助恐怖分子或逃避纳税义务的人来说非常有用。）我向22个不同国家的54个不同的公司服务提供商征求了匿名公司载体的提议，并整理了这些回应，以确定对匿名公司载体的现有法律和监管禁令是否在实践中实际起作用。为了预示结果，似乎小岛屿离岸中心的公司透明度和披露标准可能高于主要的经合组织经济体，如美国和英国。
The last few years have seen an international campaign to ensure that the world's financial and banking systems are "transparent," meaning that every actor and transaction within the system can be traced to a discrete, identifiable individual. I present an audit study of compliance with the prohibitions on anonymous shell companies. In particular, I describe my attempts to found anonymous corporate vehicles without proof of identity and then to establish corporate bank accounts for these vehicles. (Transactions processed through the corporate account of such a "shell company" become effectively untraceable—and thus very useful for those looking to hide criminal profits, pay or receive bribes, finance terrorists, or escape tax obligations.) I solicited offers of anonymous corporate vehicles from 54 different corporate service providers in 22 different countries, and collated the responses to determine whether the existing legal and regulatory prohibitions on anonymous corporate vehicles actually work in practice. To foreshadow the results, it seems that small island offshore centers may have standards for corporate transparency and disclosure that are higher than major OECD economies like the United States and the United Kingdom.