Gold Magazine November - December 2013, Issue 32 | Page 8

EDITORIAL
ISSUE 32
NOVEMBER 14 - DECEMBER 13, 2013
PRICE €4.95
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Doing the Right Thing

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THE INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENT, FINANCE & PROFESSIONAL SERVICES MAGAZINE OF CYPRUS

THE LEGAL

EXPERTS

DIRECTORY

J

ust days after delivering an upbeat assessment of Cyprus’ progress regarding a return to
growth, the President of the Cyprus Investment Promotion Agency (CIPA), Christodoulos Angastiniotis, gave an unusually outspoken warning about the future of the
country’s vital services sector. He revealed that the OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes had ranked Cyprus 50th, alongside
Seychelles, the British Virgin Islands and Luxembourg. Explaining that the reason for this was
that legal, accounting and fiduciary firms were failing or avoiding to provide answers to questions submitted by foreign governments to the Department of Inland Revenue, Angastiniotis
pointed the finger at the regulatory bodies – the Institute of Certified Public Accountants of
Cyprus, the Cyprus Bar Association and the Securities and Exchange Commission – and said
that if they do not exercise stricter control of their members, “the negligence, indifference or
bad practices of a few could destroy the services sector of the economy”.
The CIPA President’s comments came ahead of a major international summit on government transparency in London and to coincide with it, the Open Knowledge Foundation
published its 2013 Open Data Index, showing that governments are still not providing enough
information in an accessible form to their citizens and businesses. The Index ranks countries
based on the availability and accessibility of information in ten key areas, including government spending, election results, transport timetables, and pollution levels, and reveals that
whilst some good progress is being made, much remains to be done. The UK and US top the
2013 Index, which is a result of community-based surveys in 70 countries. They are followed
by Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands but – shockingly – Cyprus is ranked last, below
countries like Yemen and Burkina Faso. Clearly, something needs to be done.
Coincidentally, in this issue of Gold we look at two important components of the island’s
professional services sector – law firms and administrative service providers, more familiarly
known as fiduciary companies – and we emphasise their positive contribution to the economy.
In our Directory of Legal Experts, we draw attention to 140 of the country’s specialist lawyers, almost exclusively those who have been recognized by their clients and peers for excellence
in their chosen area of practice. From banking and finance to litigation and arbitration, Cyprus
has lawyers with all the expertise required in today’s world of cross-border transactions and
globally interconnected economies. And we are not asking you to take our word, or indeed
their word, for it; in compiling the list we looked to some of the established ranking houses for
their assessments.
Elsewhere in the magazine we have interviews with two key figures in the fiduciary sector
who, while expressing sometimes differing views on the issue of regulation, are nonetheless
united in their vision for the sector and for Cyprus. We sincerely hope that those who lead the
way in the legal and fiduciary areas will take serious heed of Christodoulos Angastiniotis’ warnings.
With the Troika pressing the Government to stick to the agreed timetable for progress on
privatisation, and Cyprus evidently failing to live up to its ambitions to restore confidence in
its way of doing business, as indicated by its poor assessment by the OECD Global Forum and
the Open Knowledge Foundation, it is time for President Anasta