Pursuant to the enactment of the Finance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2018 (the “Finance Act 2018") in the same year, several changes were made to the Global Business regulatory framework as summarised below:

- There would only be one type of Global Business Licence issued by the Financial Services Commission (FSC)
- The Category 2 Global Business licence (GBL2) would no longer be issued by the FSC
- A new type of entity, known as the “Authorised Company", was introduced

To that effect, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) stopped entertaining the applications for GBC2 as from October 2018. However, a grandfathering period was provided for GBC2 licensed on or before 16 October 2017 i.e. those entities were allowed to continue to operate under the same tax regime and conditions until 30 June 2021. Post 30 June 2021, the licence of GBC2 having benefitted from the grandfathering period, will lapse.

There are a number of possibilities that could be considered by those GBC2 which have been grandfathered:

1. Convert to a Global Business Company (GBC); or
2. Convert to Authorised Company; or
3. Migrate to another jurisdiction; or
4. Wind up/liquidate the GBC2.

The FSC issued a correspondence on 31 March 2021 with regards to options 1 and 2 cited above in which it advises that it has put in place a simplified process for same. It also confirms that the statutory processing fee and annual fee for conversion from GBC2 to AC will be waived. On the other hand, normal statutory fees for conversion from GBC2 to GBC will apply. To access the full correspondence, please click here.

If you require more in-depth advice relating to the options cited above or if you would like to have specialist tax advice for any of these options, please get in touch with your usual contact person at ITL or write to us on info@intercontinentaltrust.com