Seychelles offshore companies - who is in control?

[italkcash]

As promised some news about the offshore industry, here in details about the Seychelles.

From getting a number of complaints about some agents on the Seychelles that provides offshore constructions such as IBC's (International Business Companies) there has arisen a situation which would be very unlikely to arise in USA or EU.

Since the Seychelles Business Authority (SIBA) is the authority that gives out licenses to companies to conduct business in respect to incorporation on behalf of third party, we have discovered that SIBA as an institution has no formal check up nor any due diligence in respect to how the agents are treating their clients.

In one instance a number of clients had wished to move their already incorporated companies from their agent to a new agent.

On the Seychelles such a process is obviously easy as the new agent simply tells the old agent about such move is pending and the old agent signs off the oversight with the company.

But in this case the agent refused to sign of, simply stopped responding thus for no apparent reason the companies got stuck. Despite the fact that we have proof of involvement from SIBA, nothing seems to be happening in regards to moving from one agent to another. For some reason yet unknown to us SIBA has neither commented, nor have they acted in respect to the clients wishes to move their company.

Since the legislation on the Seychelles requires companies to be paid for every year, the so called yearly fee, the agent which represents you on the Seychelles must receive money and send those to SIBA (+ what ever their commission is).

If the agent is unresponsive or for some reason not able to act accordingly the move of companies is completely impossible, and for some reason yet unknown to us, SIBA has not reacted upon our emails nor on our phone calls in regards to why it seems an agent has more power to act in accordance to companies than the authorities themselves on the Seychelles.

Our question about the Seychelles lies in - who is really in charge of a company on the Seychelles? Is it the client or the agent? And if SIBA's role is nothing but receiving yearly fees, are offshore companies even safe on to incorporate on the Seychelles?