Panama has made some key moves in order to get itself removed from the international “grey list” of nations that aren’t doing enough to fight money laundering, but these efforts may yet fall short…
…One of the main sticking points in these ongoing negotiations has been Panama’s limited regulation of bearer shares. These are equity securities that are exclusively owned by whoever physically possesses them. Bearer shares are also highly vulnerable to money laundering, as those who issue them don’t keep records of the buyers, and selling them is as easy as delivering a piece of paper to someone else.
No one keeps tracks of this buying and selling process, which makes it extremely difficult to determine who owns the share. Before Congress passed reforms earlier this year, Panamanian law made it even more difficult, as the original owner of the bearer share was not required under any circumstance to turn it over to an authorized custodian such as a bank or an attorney.