Nominee services

Nominee services

Nominees can play an important role in the way parties hold certain rights, whether shares in a company or registered rights over assets. Legal ownership will be in the hands of the nominee, with beneficial ownership held by the client.

Not only does using a nominee ensure confidentiality, particularly when share ownership is in a public register, it can also make it easier to transfer beneficial interests without the need to formally transfer the legal ownership of shares with all the necessary documentation and filings. There may be family or security reasons why it is important that the beneficial ownership of shares is not publicly available. However, to be clear, the nominee may never be used to hide interests or assets from governments or their agencies, or from corporate service providers.

For companies too, confidentiality for their business dealings can be extremely important. This applies not just to shares, but also to other rights registered in a public registry where failure to register could have negative legal consequences if other parties take prior rights to these assets by virtue of their registration. On the other hand, a company may not wish competitors to know that they are involved in particular business transactions. Registering security or title rights in the name of a nominee in a public register allows a company to protect its confidential relationships whilst simultaneously safeguarding its interests.

Rosetrust offers nominee services on two levels.

• We have a nominee company dedicated solely to holding shares as a nominee and trustee for beneficial owners, whether the beneficial owner is an individual, a company, or a trust.
• We also have a second nominee company that will act as an agent for a party that needs to register title or security rights in a public registry without being directly disclosed. Our company will go on the registry as the holder of these rights, and then separately agree with the client to hold that registration on its behalf.

Both our nominee companies are exclusively allocated for their specific tasks and it is intended that they will not provide any other services or take on any other liabilities, thereby giving the client an additional area of protection.

For more information, please contact Howard Rosen.