Cayman: Obama ‘disingenuous at best’
Thursday June 02 2011 | 03:04 AM

The Cayman Islands Stock Exchange has launched a hard-hitting broadside against critics of the offshore jurisdiction, including US President Barack Obama, who is accused of being "disingenuous at best".

Chairman Anthony Travers, writing in Global Financial Strategy today, says the island's domestic legislation "exceeds the highest international standards", adding that suggestions over lack of transparency or tax evasion do not "carry any weight".

The former managing partner of international law firm Maples and Calder also hits out at US and international regulations introduced in the wake of the financial crisis, including Basel III and the Dodd Frank Act, which he suggests would not prevent a repeat of banking collapses.

"Although mischaracterisations abound, the facts are very different," Travers insists, alluding to the US President's criticisms of American multinationals for registering in jurisdictions such as Cayman as a way of avoiding tax.

"[Cayman's] standards of governance and transparency are regularly verified by onsite inspections by the International Monetary Fund, the Financial Action Task Force, the OECD and indeed the United States General Accountability Office, which makes certain recent statements of the United States President sound disingenuous at best.

"Not only does the foregoing render the clichéd criticisms unfair but it serves no useful purpose for politicians in the onshore jurisdictions to repeat them."

Travers asserts that the Caribbean destination remains in rude health with new fund registrations running at some 80 a month. Home to some 9,350 funds in total, the chairman claims that Cayman host some 75 per cent of global hedge funds, with total assets under management of some $2.6tn.

Travers, who earlier this year stepped down as chair of Cayman Finance, previously known as the Cayman Islands Financial Services Association, also criticises the "socialist regime" of the past British Labour government.