Company Formation

A donor to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK is the registered manager and shareholder of a Dubai-based company that previously had business ties to an Iranian conglomerate later placed under U.S. sanctions.

Trade misinvoicing is occurring at “massive scale” across Asian supply chains, with discrepancies in reported invoice values reaching a record $1.7 trillion in 2022 across developing Asia.

Ten years after the Panama Papers exposed the offshore financial system exploited by tax cheats and criminals around the world, prosecutions and transparency reforms tied to the landmark investigation are still unfolding.

The British Virgin Islands has opened part of its long-guarded corporate registry to outside scrutiny, but anti-corruption advocates say the new transparency rules contain loopholes that could let bad actors hide ownership information and undermine investigations.

The U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control on Tuesday issued new guidance warning that sham transactions used by sanctioned individuals and entities to disguise continuing control over assets do not extinguish a blocked interest in property under U.S. sanctions rules.

The trial of Russian businessman Dmitry Klyuev, accused by French prosecutors of laundering proceeds of the $230 million Magnitsky Affair fraud through luxury purchases in France, opened in Paris on Monday. 

Florida shell companies and virtual office addresses are at the center of an expanding international investigation into at least $260 million in funds tied to Argentina’s top soccer authority.

Britain’s government will cap political donations from British citizens living overseas at £100,000 a year and temporarily ban cryptocurrency donations under emergency election law changes aimed at countering foreign interference.

Companies House has removed cryptocurrency exchange Zedxion Exchange Ltd. from the UK’s register of businesses after an investigative report by OCCRP found the firm used a fictitious director and misleading incorporation filings to conceal links to sanctioned Iranian tycoon Babak Zanjani.

An Iranian banker sanctioned by Britain for allegedly helping finance the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) owns a luxury villa in Marbella through the Spanish subsidiary of a UK company.