First Meeting of the Board of BVI International Arbitration Centre

The Board of the BVI International Arbitration Centre, which was appointed on 7 September, 2015, had its first meeting in Tortola, BVI. Premier and Minister of Finance, Dr. Orlando Smith informed the Board of the full support of the BVI Government, and of its commitment to the independence and autonomy of the Centre.

It was stated by the Chairman of the Board Mr. John Beechey that the inaugural meeting had been the first opportunity for members of the Board to discuss together timetable and outstanding action items. The immediate tasks with which the Board had to work were the finalisation of Rules for the Centre and the formation of panel of arbitrators.

BVI Presented as Top Financial Centre at China Offshore Summit

British Virgin Islands was named the most important and most preferred offshore jurisdiction in the Asia Pacific, already for the sixth year. The survey was conducted inside and outside the region, and in respondents’ opinion BVI remains the undisputed market leader in the financial services industry.

At the 2015 China Offshore Summit, which was held in Shanghai on November 4-5, CEO of Vistra Group Martin Crawford made a presentation on behalf of BVI Finance. He said that the BVI territory held about 50 percent of the market share of new offshore companies formed globally and, of the active companies on the BVI’s registry, about 60 percent were from Asian clients. He stated that in the Global Financial Centres Index the BVI is ranked at the top of the most competitive offshore financial centres, and named some factors that help BVI remain the leader, among them legal and commercial certainty, and robust regulatory standards, being focused on “value-added” rather than pure volume.

Additionally, Crawford said that the top ten listed companies on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the Shanghai Stock Exchange had BVI subsidiaries.

Presentations were also made for the BVI at the Summit by group legal counsel at AMS Financial Group, Barry Mitchell, director of BVI House Asia, Elise Donovan, and managing partner in China of Harney, Westwood and Riegels, Kristy Calvert. China Offshore Summit was attended by more than 500 Chinese business leaders.

Opposition Leader Speaks to Public

The parliamentary opposition of the British Virgin Islands has been criticized for keeping silence since it lost the general elections in June, but this week opposition leader Julian Frazer said to the public that they will start working soon. He added that the PAC (Public Accounts Committee) will be on track soon, and “the budget time coming up.”

After the defeat of the opposition led by Frazer, he and Andrew Fahie remained the only members of the Opposition Virgin Islands Party in the House of Assembly – the two other seats the party had were lost. However, when choosing between two members, Frazer was selected again as the leader of the opposition. NDP returned to government for the second term, with eleven seats in the House.