6 June 2020

David Cameron promised to stop scammers and kleptocrats hiding behind British shell companies. But almost one in ten UK firms still do not declare ‘persons of significant control’

Nearly 400,000 British companies do not, will not or cannot say who controls them, according to research carried out by openDemocracy.

In 2016, the UK’s more than four million firms were ordered to identify who controls them, in an attempted crackdown on anonymously owned shell structures often used to wash dirty money through the international financial system.

However, a detailed analysis of millions of filings at Britain’s corporate registry, Companies House, shows almost 10 per cent of UK firms still do not declare who their beneficiaries are - often thanks to what campaigners believe is a legal loophole that could facilitate crime, corruption and tax evasion.