Aziz Rahman outlines the difficulties of cracking down on those who fail to declare beneficial owners

The UK government has stated that it will use all possible ways of targeting overseas companies that fail to report their beneficial owners.

But Aziz Rahman explained to City AM that the task will be far from simple, as investigators face a number of challenges.

He said that the government “is making all the right noises about coming down hard on those who did not register”. But he emphasised that investigators may find it difficult to “truly hold to account those who are ultimately responsible,” if those people hide behind a “maze of complex corporate structures”.

The government has stated its intention to crack down on the thousands of overseas companies that failed to declare their beneficial owners for Companies House’s new property register by the 31 January deadline.

The register was devised in an attempt to increase transparency around property ownership by showing the individuals that own land and real estate in the UK via companies and organisations that are based offshore. The government has argued that criminals use complicated corporate structures to buy UK land and property to launder their proceeds of crime.

But only 19,510 out of 32,440 overseas entities have actually declared their beneficial owners to the new register.

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