Financial Services Disclosure and Provision Law (FOI)

Request

The draft legislation, Financial Services (Disclosure and Provision of Information) (Jersey) Law 2020, is in response to the findings in the 2016 MONEYVAL report, regarding Jersey’s compliance with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) recommendations. The proposed legislation will most likely be in force by the end of 2020 and will adopt the recommendations and enhance the existing beneficial ownership and control requirements.

This establishes a central register which will be divided into a public (open register) and a private (closed register) with information such as company directors’ details being made publicly available (although individuals can apply for their details to remain confidential) while beneficial ownership remains private.

Are there any reports or speeches which a Minister or Government spokesman gives a date on when the open register will be made public? (as it does no appear to be yet).

Response

The timeframe for making information public is as set out in the Financial Services (Disclosure and Provision of Information) (Jersey) Law 2020 and associated Regulations. As this information is already publicly available, Article 23 (Information accessible to applicant by other means) of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

In order to assist the applicant, the relevant Regulation is:

10      Transitional arrangement for information to be made publicly available

Despite any other provision in these Regulations, the Commission must not make available for public inspection any information specified in Regulation 2(1) or Regulation 3 –

(a)     before the end of 31st May 2021; or

(b)     if the Commission extends the period for the provision of annual confirmation statements (under Paragraph 2 of the Schedule to the Law), by the date that is 3 months after the end of the period.

The period for the provision of annual confirmation statements was extended to September 2021. The Registry confirms that details in the public Register have been available in entity profiles from January 2022, subject to requests for the data to be made private, where decisions have still to be made by entities over release of address data, and non-provision of data.

The information requested is now publicly available from January 2022 in entity profiles. This information can be found on the Jersey Financial Services Commission’s website. Information was made public in accordance with Article 10 of the Financial Services (Disclosure and Provision of Information) (Jersey) Law 2020. 

Registry — Jersey Financial Services Commission (jerseyfsc.org)

Article applied

Article 23 - Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.