George Town, Grand Cayman,

13th March 2019

The European Union has issued its list on non-cooperative tax jurisdictions, and, as expected, the Cayman Islands does not feature. The so-called ‘blacklist’ includes 15 countries which were identified by the EU as having either failed to deliver on commitments or which made no commitment at all to address tax abuse and unfair tax competition.

The publication of the list is both welcome and expected and demonstrates our adherence to measures to tackle tax and transparency concerns that are global standards as well as recent legislative changes implemented to reflect concerns about economic substance.

This in line with the government’s longstanding commitment to tackling financial crime and to adhering to international initiatives based on a level playing field.

The success of the international insurance industry in the Cayman Islands over the last fifty years has been based on our highly developed professional services, sound regulatory environment, modern legislation, access to the world’s major reinsurance markets, our expertise, and cooperation with legal enforcement globally and not simply our tax neutrality.

This was a point reiterated by the Premier, the Hon. Alden McLaughlin, in New York in January when he explained the reasons for our success as a country: “our financial services business regime is attractive to companies because of our proximity to the United States, our tax neutrality, a broad cadre of financial services expertise, and because of our adherence to international standards with respect to global transparency and the fight against money-laundering and cross border financial crime.”

Responding, Erin Brosnihan, Chair of the Insurance Managers Association Cayman (IMAC), said: “On behalf of IMAC, I thank the Cayman Islands Government and the Ministry of Financial Services in particular, as well as our industry partners who actively participated in the consultations to achieve this excellent result.  We are proud of our record as a country in complying with international regulatory standards and will continue to work closely with stakeholders to ensure standards are adhered to as they apply globally.  Our international insurance and reinsurance industry by virtue of its systematic growth of the last few years is built upon sound pillars of governance, best practice and professional infrastructure.  We remain confident that the Cayman Islands, through its existing platform of insurance managers, regulation, brokers, underwriters and lawyers continue to build out an industry architecture that will continue to satisfy the evolving demands of stakeholders and outside interests.”

ENDS

The fifteen countries which have appeared on the list of non-cooperative tax jurisdictions are: American Samoa, Aruba, Barbados, Bermuda, Belize, Dominica, Fiji, Guam, the Marshall Islands, Oman, Samoa, Trinidad and Tobago, United Arab Emirates, US Virgin Islands and Vanuatu. For more information, see the EU press release here and the fact sheet here.