Gibraltar: the captured state

From The Guardian, via Tax Research, a description of the financial sector in Gibraltar:

"The GFIA brochure boasts that Gibraltar’s “seamless communication between industry, regulator and government have allowed it to develop into arguably the premier experienced fund regime in Europe and certainly the regime with the greatest flexibility and fastest time to market”. Hassans’ links with government go back to 1964 when Sir Joshua Hassan was appointed chief minister. He served until 1969, before being re-elected for a second term between 1972 and 1987. Hassan was the founder of Hassans law firm and is Lasry’s uncle.

Asked about these close links, Picardo said: “If you think there’s a problem, maybe you should speak to the leader of the opposition – he’s a partner at Hassans.”

As we said in our Finance Curse document, this is the Captured State in action. Delaware, Jersey, Cyprus, Ireland, Cayman: they are all at it.

With plenty more on this broad subject still to come.