Criminalisation of the Use of Offshore Financial Centres in the United Kingdom

Abstract

This article proposes an analysis of the evolution of the British strategy, alone or as part of an international organization, to criminalize the use of offshore financial centres (OFCs). As the analysis focuses on the use of OFCs in their modern shape, it will encompass the decades from the 1960s to 2014. The main objective is to underline the fact that the 2007 financial crisis has triggered a tougher and concerted criminalization of the use of OFCs. Here, the article analyses the whole complexity of offshore finance and the difficulty for governments and the legislator to address this problem.