War-Time Financial Problems eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 286 pages of information about War-Time Financial Problems.

War-Time Financial Problems eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 286 pages of information about War-Time Financial Problems.

If, however, the legislature should decide upon the necessity of disclosure of alien ownership, the Committee draws up the following scheme for securing it in Paragraph 15 of its Report: 

15.  For reasons already given, it is not possible efficiently to ensure full disclosure, but the following suggestions would, in the absence of deliberate and intentional evasion (which would be quite possible), meet the point and in the large majority of cases would disclose the extent of alien interests and control:—­
(a) Every allottee of shares upon allotment and every transferee upon transfer should be required to make a declaration disclosing his nationality and whether he is the beneficial owner of the shares, and, if not, for whom he is trustee, and what is the nationality of the beneficial owner, and should undertake within a limited time, after any change in the beneficial ownership, to communicate the new facts to the company.  In default of compliance with the above, the shares should, at the option of the company, either (1) be liable to sale by the company and the holder be entitled only to the proceeds; or (2) be liable to forfeiture and the holder be entitled to receive payment from the company of 10 per cent. less than the market value of the share, or if there be no market value, then 10 per cent. less than the value at which the share would be taken for ad valorem stamp duty if it were the subject of transfer.  In case the company made default in exercising its power, the Board of Trade should be authorised to require the above sale to be made.
(b) Every director, upon coming into office, should be required to make a declaration disclosing his nationality and stating whether in his office he is wholly free from the control or influence of any alien, and if he is not so free, stating by whose directions or under whose control or influence he is to act and what is the nationality of that person, and should undertake within a limited time after any change in that state of things to communicate the facts to the Board and procure a statement of the facts to be entered in the Board minutes.  Any breach of these obligations to be visited with a penalty which should be severe.
(c) The company should be required to enter in the register of members, against the name of every registered member, his nationality as disclosed by the declaration.  In the case where the registered member is not the beneficial owner, the company should be required to record, not in the register, but in another book, the nationality of the beneficial owner as disclosed by the declaration, and, as regards the latter book, to record the nationality of any new beneficial owner when and as disclosed by the registered member.  These particulars should be required to be included in the annual list under Section 26 of the Act of 1908.  That list would thus become not a list of members only,
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War-Time Financial Problems from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.