Nothing sinister about foreign corporations registering in the Cayman Islands

DELRAY BEACH, USA: Sovereign Society, November 4, 2009 – Obama several times referred to an office building in the Cayman Islands that, he said, supposedly housed 12,000 U.S.-based corporations. “That’s either the biggest building in the world or the biggest tax scam in the world,” he said. The building is Ugland House, the home office of the international law firm, Maples and Calder. It is the address of almost 19,000 companies, many of them American.

Biggest building in the world? Hardly… How about a single low-rise, yellow brick building…1209 Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware. That building must be ten times larger, since it’s the legally registered office of more than 200,000 companies including Ford, American Airlines, General Motors, Coca-Cola and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

In both Delaware and the Cayman Islands, there is nothing sinister about foreign corporations registering there. That act allows them to take advantage of their home countries’ lawful tax breaks allowed for foreign investment and income earned offshore.


Secret deals through the Cayman Islands

NEW YORK, USA: Democracy Now, November 4, 2009 – A five-month investigation by McClatchy Newspapers reveals that Goldman Sachs made secret bets against the housing market while simultaneously selling off billions in soon-to-be worthless securities. In 2006 and 2007, the bank reportedly peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in US housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.

This double-dealing allowed Goldman to foist most of its potential losses on to other investors before a flood of mortgage defaults brought down the US and global economies. The investigation also reveals that Goldman Sachs used offshore tax havens to shuffle its mortgage-backed securities to institutions around the world, often in secret deals run through the Cayman Islands.


Jersey supports end to Cayman bank secrecy

ST PETER PORT, Guernsey: International Finance Centre, November 4, 2009 – Jersey’s Minister for Treasury & Resources Senator Philip Ozouf, supports the international drive to end the era of banking secrecy laws and to achieve a level playing field in tax co-operation, highlighted in a report commissioned by Christian Aid which claims that Delaware, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Cayman Islands and the UK (London) are the most secretive financial centres in the world.