BVI enacts BOSS access and disclosure legislation

On 13 October 2020, the Minister with the approval of the Cabinet and in the exercise of the powers conferred by section 4(5) of the Beneficial Ownership Secure Search (BOSS) System Act 2017 made the Beneficial Ownership Secure Search System (Access and Disclosure) Regulations 2020 (theRegulations). The Regulations were Gazetted on 15 October 2020 but they do not expressly state the date on which they come into force.

Since the Regulations do not state the date they come into force, applying section 16(3) of the Interpretation Act Cap. 136, if an enactment does not state or provide a day or date of commencement or coming into force, the enactment commences or comes into force on the date after the assent and, if a statutory instrument does not state or provide for a date or date of coming into force, the statutory instrument comes into force on the day after the date of publication in the Gazette.

The Regulations, in this case, is a statutory instrument (No. 119 of 2020). As such, the Regulations came into force on 16 October 2020.

The Regulations provide that:

• the British Virgin Islands International Tax Authority shall have access to the economic substance information held on the BOSS system

• such information is accessible for the purposes of:

• • enforcing and monitoring obligations placed on corporate and legal entities (as defined in the BOSS legislation) by the Economic Substance (Companies and Limited Partnerships) Act 2018 (the ES Act); and

• • disclosing information held on the RA databases (as defined in the BOSS legislation) to the persons as set out in Schedule 4 of the ES Act.

A copy of the Regulations can be found here.