Updating the Island’s Corporate Laws in line with international AML and CFT standards

The Central Registry sought views on changes to laws on registration of companies, limited partnerships and other legal entities in order bring the Island into line with the requirements of the Financial Action Task Force’s international standards.

The Registry ran a 7 week consultation on the proposals, from 27 November 2025 to 16 January 2026.

There were a total of 16 responses.

Overall there was broad support for the changes, though there were concerns in relation to the detail of some of the proposals. The main themes of the feedback included:

• The possibility of overreach in relation to the Registrar’s powers and potential regulatory overlap with the FSA
   
• Proposals regarding the timescales for provision of some of the information from companies and other legal entities
   
• Proposals relating to personal information (e.g. dates of birth); how the information is held, what extent it is public or private, and who has access to it
   
• Disclosure of nominee shareholder arrangements
   
• Requirements to declare principal business activities and locations

The Registry is grateful to all those who responded to the consultation. The Registry will take on board the feedback from this consultation in preparing the Verification of Entity Registration Bill for introduction to the Legislative Branches in April 2026 and implementation of the resultant Act in the coming months. 

This will include engagement with industry and others as the Registry seeks to bring in these changes.

The Department will also bring forward to Tynwald in May an Order which amends the definition of 'registrable beneficial owner' to ensure that the Island’s definition aligns with the FATF standard.