International Business Companies (Amendment) Bill 2021 is approved
July 28, 2021
The National Assembly voted yesterday to approve amendments to the International Business Companies Act.
Presenting the amendments before the house, yesterday afternoon, the Minister for Finance, Economic Planning and Trade, Naadir Hassan noted that the proposed amendments are aimed at improving the supervisory role of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), over the businesses registered in the jurisdiction of Seychelles.
The Amendments also take into consideration the recommendations of the Global Forum report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which was published in 2020.
The ranking of Seychelles went down during this assessment, from ‘largely compliant’ to ‘partially compliant’. The slide in ranking to ‘partially complaint’ meant automatically the European Union placed Seychelles on its list of ‘non-cooperative’ countries.
Many amendments were proposed and accepted by the National Assembly.
One such amendments were the facilitation of accessing records of companies registered in the Seychelles jurisdiction.
Amendments to Section 175, compel companies to hold on to their financial records in Seychelles, and to allow for inspections by FSA.
Section 169 (a) is a new addition to the Act, it makes provision for a company to preserve information about all its dealings for at least seven years, even if the company has been dissolved or struck off.
There are six bills before the National Assembly to be approved before the end of this week's session.