From the AEGIS e-Journal, Volume 3 Number 5, May 2000
Offshore Financial Services, an Introduction J. Kevin Higgins Counselors, Ltd. 1 (242) 322-1000. ($22.00) The author is a well known offshore professional, regulator, and instructor. This book is an important tool for anyone who either wants to use offshore financial services, or to understand how the whole “offshore tax advantaged jurisdiction” thing works. The book is a comprehensive treatment of the offshore industry, and includes the development and history of the offshore concept. It also contains some of the best material describing structures, their histories, and how they are to be formed that this reviewer has ever read. This book is well-focused and is already an important reference in this reviewer’s library. The Offshore Money Book: How to Move Assets Offshore for Privacy, Protection, and Tax Advantage Arnold J. Cornez, priced at $18.00 NTC/Contemporary Publishing The book is a direct and comprehensive treatment of offshore, or tax advantaged, financial planning. Unlike many other books that are a mere come-on or a thinly-disguised advertisement, this book is educational and a must for any person looking to use the offshore realm for financial planning reasons. This is a revised edition of an already well known book. This reviewer has seen this book in many offshore regulators’ offices: This book is used by them both as a reference tool and as a teaching aid for their supervisory staff. It also contains a priceless review of all current offshore financial centers, plenty of telephone numbers and internet resources (both in print and on a disk that comes with the book) for research and self study. The author, Cornez, has long been a champion of compliance with laws and of scam busting. It is a good read and a great reference book. It is priced fairly and is worth every dime. Offshore Alert and Inside Bermuda David Marchant, Offshore Business News and Research, Inc. http://www.offshorebusiness.com/ OBNR is run by David Marchant, an international investigative journalist who specializes in busting liars and fraudsters. As a direct result of his work, regulators from Isle of Mann to the Cayman Islands have taken action. That is how well thought-of are his newsletters, and is testimony to the accuracy ÆGIS, May 2000 11 of the information. OBNR can be found at http://www.offshorebusiness.com/. The newsletters are the Offshore Alert and Inside Bermuda. He has also compiled some very impressive data bases on Bermuda and Cayman legal cases that not even the governments of these islands have computerized. OBNR has also thoughtfully compiled a searchable index of previous issues so the subscriber can search previous issues and find information that is truly not available anywhere else. If you are doing business offshore or working in the “tax advantaged” jurisdictions (as the EU likes to call them), his publication, and access to the legal records he has thoughtfully compiled, is a must. 7. Free-Subscription/Unsubscription/Copyright Information •• ÆGIS e-journal is supported and maintained by voluntary efforts. This publication is owned, published, and copyright © 2000 by The LUBRINCO Group Ltd, Inc. and Financial Examinations and Evaluations, Inc. It is edited jointly by Richard Isaacs (RBIsaacs@lubrinco.com) and L. Burke Files (LBFiles@lubrinco.com. The LUBRINCO Group provides services in three high-threat areas, too specialized to be dealt-with in-house, that can adversely affect domestic and international bottom lines. • Protection of trade secrets and intellectual assets. o Anti-economic espionage. o OPSEC: The identification and protection of information that would give your competitors and adversaries an advantage. • International financial investigations and due diligence consulting. o Location and recovery of missing and hidden assets. o Establishing business relationships and strategic partnerships in Central and Eastern Europe, the offshore financial centers, Beijing and Shanghai, Central Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean. o Anti-money laundering and financial fraud requirements under the International Money Laundering Abatement and Anti-Terrorist Financing Act of 2001 and the EU Revised Money Laundering Directive of 2001. • Protection of management, staff, and families. o In the high-threat environments of Latin America, Africa, the Mid- East, and Southeast Asia. o When traveling and living overseas. ÆGIS, May 2000 12 o When transporting items of substantial value. LUBRINCO identifies and quantifies threats and vulnerabilities, and their associated risk, then manages the vulnerabilities so you can transfer or live with the residual risk. We prevent disastrous financial loss to your company, and physical harm to you, your family, and your staff. For information on The LUBRINCO Group and its services, or for the archive of all past issues of ÆGIS e-journal in PDF format, please go to http://www.lubrinco.com/. To sign up for a complimentary subscription to ÆGIS e-journal or the ÆGIS e- journal PDF notification list, go to http://lb.bcentral.com/ex/manage/subscriberprefs?customerid=7768 or send an email to ejournal@lubrinco.com. To subscribe to our AvantGo channel, go to http://avantgo.com/channels/_add_channel.pl?cha_id=1773 To be removed from the subscription list, follow the instructions on the mailing you received, or send an e-mail to ejournal@lubrinco.com. If you know of anyone else who should be receiving ÆGIS e-journal, please send their e-mail address to ejournal@lubrinco.com. If there is a topic that you would like to know more about, send it to ejournal@lubrinco.com and the editors will consider it as the topic for an article in an upcoming issue. If you would like to submit an article for publication in ÆGIS e-journal, send it as an attachment to an e-mail to ejournal@lubrinco.com. Submission of an article certifies that (a) all information in the article is in the public record, or (b) that you are authorized to release any personal or corporate proprietary information contained in the article, and (c) that none of the article has previously been copyrighted. The submission of materials for publication in ÆGIS e-journal constitutes a license to The LUBRINCO Group Ltd, Inc., and/or Financial Examinations and Evaluations, Inc, their assigns, associates, or affiliates, to abridge and/or edit said submission, and to copyright and publish/republish any submitted materials in whatever written and/or electronic form they may choose. If you would like to go beyond normal fair-use in reproducing articles from this issue of ÆGIS e-journal, you may do so freely as long as appropriate source, copyright, accreditation, and link to the LUBRINCO website is included. This should be in the form ÆGIS, May 2000 13
Article Title, from the May 2000 ÆGIS e-journal (© 2000 LUBRINCO & FEE), to be found at http://www.lubrinco.com/. ÆGIS e-journal is a forum for the exchange of information, ideas, operating styles, theories, and related topics for corporate managers who make decisions about threats typically outside the expertise available in-house, yet which have the potential to affect their company’s domestic and international bottom lines. Nothing appearing in ÆGIS e-journal should be construed as legal advice. The information provided is “general information,” not “specific advice.” The solution to any problem is highly dependent upon the precise facts involved. Thus, before making any reliance upon anything said here, you should consult with an appropriately skilled professional. Opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily endorsed by the publisher, and may be presented to encourage a dialogue among subscribers. The publisher and any re-publisher cannot be held responsible for any loss incurred as a result of the application of any information published in ÆGIS e-journal. Please be safe, and be smart.