The largest nations in the European Union have thrown another soft marshmallow at international tax cheats with a memorandum of understanding that relates to the sharing of information about the beneficial ownership of trusts and companies.

British premier David Cameron promised the leaders of the 'Group of 8' industrialised nations in 2013 that HM Government would set up a registry of beneficial owners, later deciding that all details on it would be made public. Some time later, the EU itself ordered all its countries to set up their own registers, leaving open the option of publicising the details. The latest agreement, reached at a meeting of the International Monetary Fund yesterday, is of interest because the other great powers of the EU have not decided to publicise entries on their registers; a quick-fire exchange of data therefore requires an MOU of this kind.

The efficacy of this type of agreement is going to be limited, however. This is because of two main factors.

• Holdings under 25% in companies and certain trusts are not disclosable. This is a holdover of an EU meeting in 2005 in which Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian prime minister of the day, had holdings of his own that he wanted to keep obscure - had he had his way entirely, the cut-off threshold would have been nearer 100%.
• The EU is not asking its nations to include any verifying detail on their registers of the kind that money-laundering reporting officers need when conducting 'know your customer' or 'customer due diligence' procedures.

Pekka Dare, the money-laundering training specialist at International Compliance Training, who lectured at the Internationl Compliance Association's conference in London this week, said recently: "The new registers of beneficial ownership rolling out across the G20 (slowly) are arguably at least a gesture towards tackling the issue. However, with no apparent verification of the information submitted by corporate entities, the actual reduction in the amount of criminal abuse of corporate structures is likely to be limited. So the onus will remain on regulated firms and those working in AML roles."

The UK's register is timed to come to life in June, the first of the registers in the world to do so.