The Tribune

By NEIL HARTNELL

Tribune Business Editor

nhartnell@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian financial services provider yesterday demanded “strong leadership” in response to the latest OECD attack, and warned against being “cowed and intimidated”.

Paul Moss, president of Dominion Management Services, told Tribune Business that the Bahamas - and especially the Government - needed to remain firm, and deliver a “strong” response to mitigate any potential reputational damage for the country’s financial services industry.

He argued that the new Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) offensive, launched via The Economist magazine, seemed designed to further undermine the Bahamas’ competitiveness as an international financial centre (IFC).

“I think these articles are not only designed for the readership, but are also calculated by certain elements of the international industry to stop the progress and growth of other jurisdictions,” Mr Moss told Tribune Business.

“It’s to stifle the growth of certain jurisdictions, and is all about competition.”

The Economist, in an article headlined ‘The Holdout’, described the Bahamas as singlehandedly undermining the global fight against “tax dodgers”, saying it was “cocking a snook” at the rest of the world.

This nation was portrayed as non-compliant and non-cooperative, with the suggestion that its chosen bilateral approach to implementing the standard for automatic tax information exchange - known as the Common Reporting Standard (CRS) - was a “foot dragging” measure intended to ‘fake’ compliance.

Mr Moss, though, emphasised that the Bahamas was “well within its rights” to follow the likes of Hong Kong and Singapore - which were not singled out by The Economist for criticism - in adopting the bilateral approach to compliance.

He added that it was vital that the Bahamas stuck to its bilateral CRS compliance approach, and not “acquiesce” to the OECD’s demands, as doing so would undermine confidence in the financial services industry and among its clients.

Another concern for the Bahamas is the impact that The Economist may have on head office perceptions of this jurisdiction, given that most of the banks and trust companies based here are foreign owned.

“We need leadership that is strong, direct and can defend the financial services industry,” Mr Moss told Tribune Business. “We need to defend it very strongly, but because many politicians don’t understand it, they don’t defend it very well.

“In my view, the response should be strong and effective from Government leadership, saying who we are, what we are, that we have been in this business for a very long time, and that we have laws that, when benchmarked, are compliant with the highest international best practices and standards.

“We’ll not be cowed and intimidated into doing away with what the OECD itself has said is a legitimate approach.”

Emphasising that the Bahamas was an independent, sovereign nation unlike many of its international financial centre (IFC) rivals, Mr Moss said US states such as Delaware were able to establish corporate entities “with half the information” required by this nation.

“This is competition,” he reiterated.