On 1 September, the OECD reported that a new peer review resulted in an overall Partially Compliant rating, whereas the previous first-round report had concluded the jurisdiction’s EOIR practice to be Largely Compliant with the standard. The main concerns identified refer to the effectiveness of enforcement and supervision activities to ensure the availability of ownership, accounting and banking information, particularly considering the filing compliance rates. Malta also had large number of inactive companies registered during the review period, which caused delays or failures to provide information to its main EOI partners. The new report thus includes recommendations to enhance enforcement, supervision and monitoring activities in order to reduce and limit the number of inactive companies. The ratings show Malta marked down from Largely Compliant to Partially Compliant on access to ownership and identity information and availability of accounting information, and from Compliant to Partially Compliant for availability of banking information and quality and timeliness of information request responses.
