The Seychelles: document keeping requirement

Contributed by Laveco Ltd. [www.laveco.com]

In accordance with the amended Act, every company regis­tered in the Seychelles must, by March 2nd 2012 at the latest, indi­cate the place where it keeps the documents related to its business transactions. This place can be in the Seychelles or anywhere else in the world. It is a further requirement that the directors must make ar­rangements for the keeping of such records as enable the financial position of the company to be determined with reasonable accura­cy at any time. The law does not prescribe the keeping of accounts, the preparation of balance sheets or audited balance sheets. The documents related to transactions must be kept for 7 years.

The records produced, however, are not publicly available, and outsiders can only view them with the permission of the director(s). The local court of registration (Seychelles International Business Authority) has the right to request the documents at any time. The responsibility of the Corporate Service Providers is increased, as, if they do not check that the records are being kept correctly and this comes to light, they may be subjected to a fine of up to 300 000 SCR (approx. 25 000 – 26 000 USD) for just one such company.

It is likely that in the near future other Offshore Financial Cen­tres offering the formation of IBCs will introduce similar changes, requiring companies registered there to indicate the place where records are kept or to prepare accounts. The transparency of trans­actions and company operations have long been a requirement of the OECD, and this is probably the reason behind the changes in the Seychelles.

January 2012

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