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| DISADVANTAGES OF ALTERNATIVE
INVESTMENT |
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The
Disadvantages of Offshore Investment
Offshore
investment may be, but is not necessarily, riskier than
onshore investment. People making offshore investments
(meaning, direct with offshore providers rather than
through on-shore and thus regulated re-sellers of offshore
investments) must do so with their eyes open. In most
cases, and for all but the most experienced investors,
this means take advice. Even if you are eventually going
to trust your own judgement, or make a deliberately
risky investment with money you can afford to lose,
there is everything to be said for taking advice from
wherever you can get it (other than from the person
selling you the investment!)
It is probably
obvious that getting information about offshore investments
can be difficult. There is a wealth of information available
about on-shore investment or about regulated offshore
funds marketed on-shore, from the newspapers and from
a multitude of other sources. It can be much harder
to find out about offshore investments directly. It
is also harder to track investments once you have made
them, although some traditional difficulties have more
or less disappeared with the advent of more reliable
telecommunications infrastructures and increasing use
of the internet. In addition, almost all offshore jurisdictions
now have supervisory regimes which exclude the bandits.
However, offshore providers and advisers can still be
somewhat laid-back on occasion!
Remember
also that a tropical island with a population of 10,000
people and 30,000 international business companies may
not leap to push your liability claim against one of
its senior professionals through the courts, however
grand-sounding its investor protection laws. Caveat
emptor is not a phrase that is well understood in Brussels
any longer, but it still has resonance offshore.
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| THE LOWTAX LIBRARY
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