Please see letter below from Cayman Finance CEO, Gonzalo Jalles, that was submitted to Ms Smith, author of the iepxats.com article on FATCA and the Cayman Islands and that you also published today.  I was not able to submit directly as a comment to the story,

kind regards,

Lynne Byles

Dear Ms. Smith,

I read your article above and regret to inform you that it contains several glaring errors and misconceptions.

The Cayman Islands cannot be described as having had a “veil of secrecy” in place and indeed there are no secret or numbered accounts alowed in the Cayman Islands.

In fact, the Cayman Islands has demonstrated its full transparency and international cooperation over the years and has signed exchange of information treaties with over 28 countries. We have also had one such agreement with the US for over 25 years. Under these treaties the information of account holders and investors will be disclosed to the proper authorities of the requesting country under appropriate procedures recognised by the OECD.

The Cayman Islands recognises the legitimate right to financial privacy that is offered in virtually all developed countries. Our jurisdictions has the similar data protection laws that any developed country has and very similar to the US and UK, although those countries do not offer protection to requests from competent authorities.

The names of directors on Cayman Islands funds is not a secret as this information is included in the offering memorandums of the fund. What CIMA is considering is creating a database that will simplify the access to that information, but that can hardly be described as ‘unveiling secrecy’.

You are right that the image of the jurisdiction is sometimes tarnished by uninformed journalists, and Cayman Finance remains at your disposal if you would like to be informed about the financial services industry in Cayman in the future.

Gonzalo Jalles

CEO, Cayman Finance

Please see story: http://www.ieyenews.com/2013/02/fatca-pushes-cayman-islands-to-unveil-financial-secrets/