Global players woefully unprepared for Cyber, BEPS and Europe's General Data Protection Regulations challenges – Bermuda Roundtable Bermuda's sophisticated insurance market is the third-largest in the world, behind London and New York and the only one besides Switzerland to have been awarded Solvency II equivalency with the EU. These insurance, reinsurance and ILS (insurance linked securities) markets have given gravitas and substance to Bermuda's status as an international financial centre. For example, Bermuda's stock exchange lists over 75% of the world's listed ILS.

Since the global financial crisis of 2008 there has been a major shift in the level of transparency and disclosure for tax purposes and also in the way in which governments assist each other in a global effort to stamp out corruption and tax evasion. Bermuda has been a leader in this field since the last century through its involvement with the OECD and the development of tax information exchange agreements and model terms (FATCA, CRS and now CbC). In this context it is also important to note that Bermuda was not listed as one of the 17 "noncooperative" tax jurisdictions on the recently released EU blacklist. Bermuda has also seen a renaissance its fund industry after legislation was passed in 2013 allowing exempt funds to be set up and started in just one day (page 10).

Global Game Changers: BEPS and Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

As a result of recent OECD projects (namely BEPS, the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting project), how businesses hold, maintain and license their intellectual property assets (IP) will have to change or suffer the consequences of additional taxation or even double taxation. Businesses may have to evidence how the IP is developed or has value added to it in the jurisdiction where it is held in order to avoid this. An unexpected result of this is an increase in interest in establishing new IP heavy businesses in Bermuda where employees can actually create, develop and maintain IP in the jurisdiction thanks to the excellent IT infrastructure and connectivity to the rest of the world. Bermuda has also shown that businesses here can actually innovate in partnership with government and the regulators (page 8-9, 11).

The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into force on May 25th, 2018. This privacy legislation imposes restrictions on international transfers of personal data outside the EU. This means that GDPR needs to be adopted or aligned to by all jurisdictions looking to attract or retain businesses that conduct business in or to the EU. Anyone processing fund subscriptions or doing AML/KYC work for EU clients will definitely be impacted by the European regulation. Along with that, the EU's proposed e-Privacy regulation also holds a number of surprises, potentially implementing highly restrictive rules for which most global players may be woefully unprepared.

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Originally published in Opalesque December 2017

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