A BARBADIAN EXPERT in international business law believes the richest industrialised countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are attempting to safeguard their market share of financial services at the expense of small international centres such as Barbados.
According to attorney-at-law Dr Trevor Carmichael QC, one of the reasons for the OECD “attack” on the smaller domiciles was the desire of dominant countries to exert more control over internationally mobile capital.
“In a globalizing world, is there any more important sovereign prerogative than controlling where footloose and free-flowing money goes?” he asked.
He floated the question last Thursday during a panel discussion hosted by the Barbados Economics Society at the Grand Salle of the Tom Adams Financial Centre.
Speaking on the topic Prospects and Challenges for Offshore Financial Centres, Carmichael said globalisation is increasingly regarded with suspicion since it introduces competition, especially in taxation.
“The tax competition introduced by international financial sectors is often unwelcome . . . ,” he said.
He added that “despite recent turmoil, financial services jobs are highly lucrative”.
“[United States] government statistics appearing in the [Central Intelligence Agency] Factbook show that the 20 [leading] economies in the world, measured by gross domestic product per capita, are dominated by countries with either oil or financial services,” Carmichael reported.
He said dominant OECD countries therefore want to control financial services business for some commercial reasons but “do not wish to appear unseemly and overtly demand the surrendering of such high-paying jobs from competitors”.
However, he charged that they try to cause “damage to the offshore-centre brand” in an attempt to achieve the same goal.