G5 Countries Agree to Exchange Beneficial Ownership Information and G20 Mandates the OECD to Develop Criteria to Identify Non-Cooperative Countries by July

On April 14, 2016, five European Union countries announced the start of a pilot initiative for automatic exchange of information on beneficial ownership in order to provide their tax and other relevant authorities full knowledge of vast amounts of information and assist in tracking the complex offshore trails used by criminals. On April 15, 2016, the meeting of the Finance Ministers and Central bank Governors of the G20 issued a Communiqué, requiring the OECD by July 2016 to publish objective criteria to identify non-cooperative jurisdictions with respect to tax transparency.