Around 100 guests from across the business community attended a presentation about how island businesses can ensure compliance with tough new UK Companies House rules and regulations last week.

Held at The Claremont Hotel and sponsored by Tiller Technologies, the key speaker was Liz Kinsey, managing director of CRO Corporate Services Ltd, who is one of the UK’s leading corporate service providers and works with top UK law and accountancy firms as well as clients in the island.

Tiller Technologies is the company behind Verify by Tiller, a leading digital AML (anti-money laundering) and KYC (know your customer) platform which supports more than 200 client firms across the UK Crown Dependencies, UK, Bermuda, Cayman, Sweden and USA.

The event covered the UK Companies House register clean-up under ECCTA (Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023), identity verification, new transparency requirements for the Register of Overseas Entities, and what Authorised Corporate Service Providers (ACSPs) must now do when filing.

Speaking after the event, Liz said: ‘It was great to see the level of interest in the topics covered in the presentation, and discussed in the question and answer session that followed.

‘ECCTA gives Companies House the power to play a more significant role in tackling economic crime and supporting economic growth.

‘Over time, these measures will lead to improved transparency and more accurate and trusted information on registers, which in turn will help to drive confidence in the UK economy, and increase the value of the register for businesses across the UK, Crown Dependencies and beyond.

‘But this also means that there are additional requirements, especially in regard to the Register of Overseas Entities, that Isle of Man must adhere to in order to ensure compliance.’

Register of Overseas Entities rules mean that beneficial owners of overseas entities owning property or land in the UK, must register at Companies House UK if they meet one or more of the following conditions known as the ‘nature of control’.

The beneficial owner is an individual person, other legal entity, government or public authority and:

  • holds, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the shares in the entity
  • holds, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the voting rights in the entity
  • holds the right, directly or indirectly, to appoint or remove a majority of the board of directors of the entity
  • has the right to exercise, or actually exercises, significant influence or control over the entity

Julia Cowan, chief revenue officer at Tiller Technologies, thanked Liz and guests who attended the event.

Julia commented: ‘This was our latest Thought Leadership event in the island and the fact that places were sold out well in advance once again shows that there is a high level of interest in these important issues.

‘Guests were keen to find out more about Verify by Tiller too, especially because it is designed specifically to meet the current and future compliance challenges created by the rapidly evolving regulatory landscape.

‘How Isle of Man businesses can use technology to ensure compliance – while also gaining onboarding and efficiency benefits – were key talking points for the Tiller Technologies team. It generated some useful conversations which we will be following up in the weeks ahead.’