Maya Forstater

How is that possible? e.g. If you are a PSC of a UK co you have to be on the register unless there are ‘exceptional circumstances’ (serious risk of violence or intimidation). U cannot say 'I'd prefer to keep that info out of public domain

You're totally right to call me out on this highly contentious issue. Yet to describe full disclosure and (consequent undermining of privacy) as necessary for open registers or immutable, is misleading.

Mandatory open registers require some degree of enforced loss of privacy. I think that comes with the territory. Otherwise they would be voluntary open registers

Currently access to that privacy is only governed by wealth; as you say, subscribing to the PSC is mandatory in the UK. As the Usmanov case shows, this can hide real beneficial ownership. A clear distinction of personal privacy and business privacy needs to be made.

Not really. Plenty of people in the paradise papers and panama papers are not massively wealthy. Cost of incorporating a company in Jersey for example is £200

A median assessment becomes necessary. The use of offshore accounts steeply rises in the top 0.1%, and very few households outside that percentile use offshores. The cost of incorporation is irrelevant to this.

The issue is not offshore accounts -- no one is suggesting a public register of bank accounts!

You said access to the privacy we discussing (i.e. offshore incorporation, no requirement for public register) 'only governed by wealth'. I said many outside of the extremely wealthy incorporate offshore companies and cost is modest. So your statement is not true.