A regular snapshot from the Crystal team of some of the highlights and points of note for finance and corporate comms pros from around the jurisdictions this past month…

• IoM: the IoM launched a new ‘skills strategy’, aimed at upskilling the island’s workforce over the coming three years to make sure it is ‘future ready’.
• Crown Dependencies: Ministers from the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man met to discuss corporate tax standards. The meeting followed a previous joint statement outlining the three jurisdictions’ intentions to align their approaches to the OECD’s Pillar Two framework.
• UK General Election and non-dom rules: despite proposals to overhaul the UK’s non-dom regime being put on hold as a result of the PM calling an Election, there is still significant activity within the private wealth space as families and HNWIs look for certainty and to mitigate future risk. Meanwhile…
• UK Overseas Territories: work on a new Overseas Territories Strategy has been halted until after the UK Election.
• BVI: the jurisdiction’s financial services minister highlighted the need to make significant progress on key AML reforms over the coming months, in response to failures identified in the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force report on the jurisdiction earlier this year. It could be a busy time for the BVI.
• Cayman: a report published last month by the Cayman Police Service highlighted the emergence of cybercrime as a major threat, with the service investigating more than US$28m in domestic and international financial crime incidents in 2023, according to its 2023 Crime and Traffic Statistics report.
• IoM: the island’s FSA launched a consultation on family office services carried out in the jurisdiction, to get a clearer picture of the local industry landscape.
• Luxembourg: Luxembourg has jumped up in terms of its reputation as a good place for journalism, according to annual global press freedom rankings, ranking 11th out of 180 countries, and being described as having a “rather good” environment for journalists.
• Public Registers: corporate transparency remained on the agenda as MP Andrew Mitchell made the claim that around 40% of dirty money in the world goes through London and the CDOTs – though the source of that figure is not clear. Nevertheless, it reflects the ongoing political focus on financial crime and transparency and the indirect implications on the CDOTs in a key election year.