Directors registered or licensed with the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) are reminded of the 15 January deadline to pay the annual fees, in order to avoid penalties.
Under the Cayman Islands Directors Registration and Licensing Law 2014 (the Law), which came into force on 4 June 2014, directors (both natural persons and corporate directors) of (a) "mutual funds" regulated under the Cayman Islands Mutual Funds Law (2015 Revision) and (b) companies registered as "Excluded Persons" under the Cayman Islands Securities Investment Business Law (2015 Revision) (collectively, Covered Entities) must register with, or obtain a license from, CIMA prior to appointment.
To maintain such registration or license, directors of Covered Entities must provide CIMA with information in a prescribed form and pay the applicable annual fee on or before 15 January in each calendar year. Failure to pay the annual fee by such time will give rise to a penalty surcharge of one-twelfth of the annual fee for every month or part of a month that the annual fee remains unpaid and will not result in the automatic de-registration of a director under the Law.
The annual fees are as follows:
- For a registered director, US$853.66;
- For a licensed professional director, US$3,658.54; and
- For a licensed corporate director, US$9,756.10.
The annual fees and relevant information must be provided to CIMA directly by each director through CIMA's web portal (https://gateway.cimaconnect.com). The payment of annual fees may only be made by Visa or MasterCard.
To avoid penalties, we recommend that directors of Covered Entities log on to CIMA's web portal early in the new year and complete the annual requirements prior to 15 January 2016.
Any person that is no longer a director of a Covered Entity may surrender his registration or license. Such surrender is effected by way of an application to CIMA in the prescribed form and upon payment of a fee of US$731.71. Any director contemplating surrendering his registration or license must complete the process by 31 December 2015 to avoid the 2016 fees becoming due and payable.
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