Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands' implementation of publicly accessible registers of company beneficial ownership in line with the Draft Order in Council prepared by the Secretary of State to comply with the requirement under section 51 of the Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Act 2018; whether the Territory has (a) introduced and (b) passed the legislation required for the creation of a publicly accessible register of company beneficial ownership; whether the register will be (i) open and (ii) free at point of access; and when the register will be (A) live and (B) operational.
The standards set out for Overseas Territory publicly accessible registers of beneficial ownership, in a written ministerial statement (HCWS369) of 14 December 2020, apply to a Territory if there exists one or more companies in relation to which information would be included in a compliant PARBO, if such a register did exist.
No companies exist in South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands.