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Economy of the British Virgin Islands

Former president of the BVI's Financial Services Commission, Michael Riegels, recites the anecdote that the offshore finance industry commenced on an unknown date in the 1970s when a lawyer from a firm in New York telephoned him with a proposal to incorporate a company in the British Virgin Islands to take advantage of a double taxation relief treaty with the United States.

International Business Companies Act

The Act was drafted principally by five people: Lewis Hunte, the then Attorney General of the British Virgin Islands; Neville Westwood, Michael Riegels and Richard Peters, who were partners at the law firm, Harneys; and Paul Butler, a partner from the U.S. law firm of Shearman & Sterling.

Michael Riegels

Michael Riegels, QC was the inaugural chairman of the Financial Services Commission of the British Virgin Islands.

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Michael Riegels was also part of the "gang of five" who drafted the original International Business Companies Act in 1984, the principal statute of the BVI's offshore finance industry for many years (and subsequently copied by a large number of competing offshore jurisdictions).

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He was admitted to the Bar of England and Wales in 1961 as a member of Gray's Inn, and to the Bar of the British Virgin Islands in 1973.

Riegels

Michael Riegels, inaugural chairman of the Financial Services Commission of the British Virgin Islands

see also