The Cayman Islands has had beneficial ownership legislation which requires companies to report on their beneficial ownership to the Registrar of Companies since 2017. Earlier this year the Ministry of Financial Services and Commerce issued a consultation paper regarding an expansion of the regime and to prepare the industry for the possibility of public beneficial ownership registers being introduced during 2023 as requested by the UK.

A ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) on 22 November 2022 relating to public beneficial ownership registers in Luxembourg (our recent blog post on the ECJ’s judgement can be found here) has now called the legality of such public registers into question in the EU.

The Ministry has confirmed that it is currently reviewing the ECJ judgment to determine if there are any implications with respect to the proposal to introduce public beneficial ownership registers in the Cayman Islands.

Although a ruling in the ECJ, post-Brexit, is not binding in the Cayman Islands or the UK, we expect the UK Government to consider the ruling carefully at the same time. We will issue further updates on this topic when available.