Panama Bearer Share Elimination Could Impact Fleet Size

Upcoming changes to bearer share policies could affect ship registrations with Panama.

National paper The Bulletin reports:

Panama is discussing eliminating company bearer shares as part of a requirement of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), composed of 34 countries, in many of which the figure of bearer shares is accepted.

In other open ship registries, such as Liberia and the Marshall Islands, bearer shares exist and shipowners do not have to declare who is the beneficial owner. Therefore, if the Bill eliminating bearer shares is approved, there may be a migration of ships out of the Panama Registry to those of the competitors.

The impact would be on collection of fees made by the Panama Maritime Authority for flagging, in the sale of companies and in income of the Public Registry.

If Panama changes its structure of bearer shares it precisely favors other registries for Greek shipowners who, [maritime lawyer Belisario] Porras said, have been moving to Liberia and Cyprus and, more recently, to the Marshall Islands, which is starting to dominate the market.

Source