Anti-corruption campaigners have called for the next UK Government to clamp down on Scottish firms they describe as Britain’s “home-grown secrecy vehicle”.
In its 2017 manifesto, Transparency International sets out a series of reforms for Scottish limited partnerships or SLPs exposed by The Herald at the heart of scores of global scandals.
The respected non-governmental organisation said: “The use of UK companies and partnerships to move illicit wealth is damaging the UK’s reputation as a good place to do business. SLPs in particularly have paid a key role in some of the most audacious money-laundering schemes in recent history and are fast becoming a home-grown secrecy vehicle.”
The Herald earlier this year revealed that Scottish corporate entities were used to launder billions in the biggest and most complex transfer of funds ever recorded, the Russian Laundromat.
The current UK Government ordered a review of SLPs before calling the election after a campaign by Oxfam backed by all Scottish parties. The kind of firm allows its owners to be secret, pay no taxes and keep no accounts – but retain have the same powers of legal personality as companies.
Transparency International called on the next government to prohibit corporate partners in SLPs or any UK partnership with legal personality and to force owners in to the open. Some Scottish legal figures – who create SLPs – have been lobbying against such reform.
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