With the first months of 2020, Cayman Islands has seen the introduction of a new bill that has amended The Companies Law (2018 Revision) in order to increase the effectiveness of the beneficial ownership regime and the connected registration process.

Clause 4 of the bill has thus amended section 244(1), in the definition of “beneficial ownership register”, by inserting after the word “current” the words “beneficial ownership”. Beforehand, a beneficial owner was considered an individual that either:

holds, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the shares of the company (or capital/profits in the case of a limited liability company);
holds, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the voting rights in the company;
holds the right, directly or indirectly, to appoint or remove a majority of the board of directors of the company (or managers in the case of a limited liability company).

With the new bill, the definition of beneficial owner will be modified from “more than 25% of the voting rights in the company” to “25% or more of the voting rights in the company”.

To allow for the public do comply with such change, the deadline for beneficial ownership filing has been extended up to 15^th May 2020

SOURCE: www.legislativeassembly.ky