Mauritius: FSC Practice Notes on Managed Corporate Service Providers

The Financial Services Commission wishes to announce that it has, on 06 January 2005, issued Practice Notes on Managed Corporate Service Providers under section 7(1)(a) of the Financial Services Development Act 2001. These Practice Notes will come into operation on 02 February 2005.

A draft version of the Practice Notes on Managed Corporate Service Providers was released for consultation in September 2004. Management Companies were invited to respond before 11 October 2004 and a number of valuable comments and suggestions were received.

On the whole, the proposals were well received and the Commission has fully considered each and every comment submitted in finalising the Practice Notes on Managed Corporate Service Providers.

Practice Notes on Managed Corporate Service Providers

1. Management Companies are licensed by the Financial Services Commission ("FSC") under section 24 of the Financial Services Development Act 2001 (“the Act”) to set up and manage global business companies , to provide nominee and other services to the latter or to act as corporate trustee or qualified trustee under the Trust Act 2001.
2. A Management Company (“MC”) is licensed on the basis that it will operate as a full fledged stand alone operation. Current practice requires Management Companies to have a permanent establishment locally and to operate from business premises with adequate logistics and staff of adequate number, skills, knowledge and experience to undertake and fulfil their duties. The only exception is where the operation of a MC is managed under a Management Agreement by a fully established Management Company having the resources to provide such a service.
3. The FSC is responsible for supervising Global Business. The FSC’s role is to reduce the risk of money laundering and other financial crime and to protect the good repute of Mauritius as a financial centre. The FSC discharges this responsibility in different ways, for example, by promoting and enforcing legislation, statements of policy and principles, guidelines and codes of practice or practice notes.
4. In particular, practice notes explain the manner in which the principles already established under legislation or a guideline will be interpreted and implemented. Practice notes are issued under section 7(1)(a) of the Act. They do not have the force of law in that breaches will not by themselves constitute criminal offences – although they may entail regulatory sanctions. However, where as a result of a breach or failure to comply with practice notes, the FSC directs the Licensee under section 7(l)(d) of the Act to comply with any practice notes or any part thereof, failure to do so will constitute a contravention of the law and may lead to prosecution- quite apart from any other regulatory action that may be taken.

The downloadable PDF version of the Practice Notes is available here