Behind the Corporate Veil « USING CORPORATE ENTITIES FOR ILLICIT PURPOSES Behind the Corporate entities underpin most commercial and entrepreneurial activities in market-based economies and have contributed immensely to growing prosperity worldwide over recent Corporate Veil decades. Increasingly, however, governments and regulatory bodies have realised that Behind the Corporate Veil corporate entities ranging from corporations and trusts to foundations and partnerships are USING CORPORATE ENTITIES often misused for money laundering, bribery and corruption, shielding assets from FOR ILLICIT PURPOSES creditors, tax evasion, self-dealing, market fraud, and other illicit activities. Prepared against this background, the OECD report Behind the Corporate Veil: Using Corporate Entities for Illicit Purposes opens ways to prevent and combat the misuse of corporate entities. The report shows that the types of corporate entities misused most frequently are those that provide the greatest degree of anonymity to their beneficial owners. With that in mind, the report offers governments and other relevant authorities a menu of policy options for obtaining information on the beneficial ownership and control of corporate entities in order to combat their misuse for illicit purposes. USING CORPORATE ENTITIES FOR ILLICIT PURPOSES USING CORPORATE This report was prepared by the OECD Steering Group on Corporate Governance and derestricted by the Council under the title Report on the Misuse of Corporate Vehicles for Illicit Purposes. OECD's books, periodicals and statistical databases are now available via www.SourceOECD.org, our online library. This book is available to subscribers to the following SourceOECD themes: Finance & Investment/Insurance & Pensions Governance Taxation Ask your librarian for more details of how to access OECD books online, or write to us at
[email protected] www.oecd.org ISBN 92-64-19543-2 21 2001 13 1 P -:HSTCQE=V^ZYXV: © OECD, 2001.