#12: EU Campaign Against CBI "Driven by Ideology": Philippe May on the Mobility Standard Podcast

IMI Podcasts

Our guest on the Mobility Standard podcast this week is Philippe May, until recently the Managing Partner of Arton Capital in Singapore who is now a free agent with big - although secret - plans, and strong opinions on current events in the investment migration market.

EPRS report on EU investment migration programs "a fringe issue"
Commenting on the European Parliament Research Service's recent report, which proposed five different policy options the EU could use to "take action" against investment migration programs in Europe, May dismissed the study as inconsequential.

"First of all, it was not even the European Parliament. It was only a research group of the European Parliament. What competencies does the European Parliament have? Unlike many national parliaments, the competencies of this Parliament are very limited. And their research group? Well, most people in the EU probably don't even know that such a group exists and its competencies are certainly of a consultative nature only. So I'm not too concerned about what it's saying."

EU campaign against CBI is "driven by ideology"
He's also disappointed in Malta's recent decision to share tax residency information on CBI investors with the individual's most recent jurisdiction of tax residency. May surmised that what motivated that decision, which he indicated made little practical sense, was meant to "appease some of those troublemakers in Brussels who always make noise about CBI programs."

If appeasing the EU was Malta's goal, he says, it was unsuccessful because "these people are driven by ideology. They will never give up."

Firms openly offering illegal discounts: "They are not hiding" and "must be exposed"

In an IMI article featuring Philippe May and Sam Bayat last month, the two industry veterans expressed dismay at the continued presence of illegal discounting among CBI agents internationally. In an exclusive interview with Les Khan, head of the Saint Kitts & Nevis CIU, last week, we took the opportunity to ask what was being done to counteract such practices. Khan stated categorically that when evidence of illegal discounting is incontrovertible, the offending firms will get blacklisted.

We asked May what he thought of Khan's statements in the interview.

"I was very happy to hear him say that. One of the major issues we face in our industry with RCBI agents is that we have too many crooks. We have too many unregulated and, I would say, almost unsavory, sometimes criminal elements in the industry. Especially in Red China and in the UAE, you find a lot of rogue agents who lie, who cheat, and who don't give a damn about minimum amounts, about CIUs, who just want to defraud their clients or to undercut prices to make a quick buck. These kinds of actors have to be weeded out and blacklist is one way to get rid of them."

Portugal changes will have negligible effect but Latvia is the world's most underrated golden visa
As the European golden visa market awaits Portugal's upcoming program changes with bated breath, we asked May what effects the reforms would have on the program's competitive position in Europe, as well as on the balance of investor preferences within Portugal's program.