By Fay Simmons

Tribune Business Reporter

jsimmons@tribunemedia.net

Attorney General Ryan Pinder yesterday dismissed questions raised by the Opposition about the consultation process for Segregated Accounts Companies Bill as a demonstration of how “out of touch” they are with the financial services sector.

Speaking in Senate yesterday, Mr Pinder said the changes were first suggested by financial institutions in The Bahamas that are active in the Brazilian marketplace and proposed amendments to capitalise on new opportunities.

“I heard the member for East Grand Bahama in that other place question the consultation of this new innovative offering with the private sector. His raising this question just reinforces my belief that the opposition is completely out of touch with the financial services industry,” said Mr Pinder.

“Many of the new innovative concepts found in this piece of legislation were first proposed by major financial services institutions in The Bahamas who are very active in the Brazilian marketplace. The proposal presented were innovative and built on prior amendments we had done in the financial services space in response to restructuring opportunities for Brazilian clients.”

He said the amendments were only made after consultation with the private sector and both the Bahamas Financial Services Board and the Association of International Banks and Trust Companies sent out notices to solicit feedback from their members.

“My office, in partnership with the BFSB, constituted a private sector working group to take a comprehensive review of the Segregated Account Company Act and to prepare a redraft that allowed for innovative uses of the product. Once we had a draft prepared, I posted the draft on laws online in the consultation section and had BFSB and AIBT send a notice out to all their members on the Bill and asked for comments and suggestions from industry. We then brought the Bill to Parliament for debate,” said Mr Pinder.

“To take a position that we did not undertake consultation on this piece of legislation is just frankly untrue and demonstrates how out of touch the Opposition is with the financial services industry.”

Mr Pinder said by restructuring the legislation governing segregated accounts the country has the opportunity to attract new international clients from competing jurisdictions, potentially leading to an “influx” of segregated account holders.

“Many of the suggested revisions in the bill come about due to restructuring opportunities because of domestic tax law changes in key markets for our financial services industry, such as Brazil. The thought is that with the introduction of these flexible restructuring and structuring opportunities we can see an influx of SACs into the jurisdiction, redomiciled from other competing financial centres, to take advantage of the new provisions of the law,” said Mr Pinder.