BVI government appoints Eminent constitutional lawyer Gerard Farara, to challenge public register rule imposed by Britain

​Eminent constitutional lawyer, Gerard Farara, QC, senior partner of Collas Crill, a leading offshore law firm with offices in BVI, Cayman, Guernsey, Jersey, London and Singapore, has been appointed by the British Virgin Islands government as a part of its legal team, advising on challenges to the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act, and the threat to impose publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership on British Overseas Territories by the United Kingdom.
 
Alongside Withers Worldwide and leading counsel Dan Sarooshi QC of Essex Court Chambers and professor of law at Oxford University, Farara will be advising the BVI government on the potential legal challenges to the imposition of a public register of beneficial ownership, which BVI premier and minister of finance, Dr Orlando Smith, believes: “would raise serious constitutional and human rights issues, and would be subject to constitutional challenge.”
 
The Act, which received Royal Assent on 23rd May, requires the secretary of state to provide “all reasonable assistance” to the governments of British Overseas Territories, to enable them to establish a publicly accessible register of company beneficial ownership, broadly equivalent to the UK register of persons with significant control established by the UK Companies Act 2006.