Scotland’s notorious anonymous shell firms are failing to comply with new UK transparency rules.
As of early this month 30,000 Scottish limited partnerships (SLPs) had to reveal their main owners or face fines of £500 a day every day.
However, a provisional check suggests very few have met the deadline of declaring if they have a person of significant control or PSC
The Herald has exposed hundreds of SLPs involved in serious criminality over the last two years, including this week two fronting for ships busting sanctions against Russia.
Investigators at Bellingcat have tested to see whether the 5,215 SLPs registered during 2016 have complied.
The found only 938 had filed their PSC statements. Just 236, the group said, were named individuals.
Some firms even cited other SLPs as their PSCs.
The individuals who were named demonstrated where SLPs are being sold off-the-peg. Russia and Ukraine accounted for 66 and 94 named owners in the Bellingcat sample.
The group said: “Although the statistics do not suggest any form of criminal activity on behalf of those who have filed their PSC statements – it does seem curious that the vast majority of SLPs have not felt the need to reveal who their beneficial owners are.”
“Perhaps this stems from the knowledge that despite the fanfare attached to the new legislation, those behind SLPs are aware that the authorities in the UK have no practical means to compel offshore partners to comply with their demands.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here