Abolition of anonymous ownership
— #137 Prohibition for companies receiving public funds to use offshore services
Companies receiving public funds and companies trading with state or public companies* shoud not be able to use offshore services consisting in concealing their true ultimate beneficial owners.
* Companies receiving subsidies, companies carrying out public contracts, including subcontractors, companies which buy or sell something to the state or which rent to or lease something from the state and finally companies which contract with state owned enterprises or companies in situations where those companies provide public service.
If companies receiving public funds, and possibly also companies contracting with the state or enterprise serving public interest, were not able to use offshore services consisting in concealing their true owner, corruption practice consisting in attributing a public contract to a Czech company owned by an “anonymous” offshore company owned, in turn, by the person attributing the public contract, could not take place. Given that Czech criminal law enforcement authorities do not have a possibility in most cases to find out who owns the offshore company, it is currently not possible to prosecute this type of corruption due to the lack of evidence.
Sources:
- Report of the European Commission on the fight against corruption in the EU, Annex Czech Republic, Annex 3, COM(2014) 38 final, p. 8 - 9
- OECD: Bribery in Public Procurement: Methods, Actors and Counter Measures, OECD Publishing, 2007, p. 31
- Vondráček, O., Havrda, M., 21 recipes – Anti-corruption cookbook, Recipe 21: Provision of offshore services to the companies receiving public funds, December 2013
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Justification and sources