Deprivation of citizenship by investment: a high-profile case in St. Kitts and Nevis
Typically, on our channel we talk about the possibilities of acquiring foreign citizenship. However, it is important to understand that national legislation provides not only the possibility of obtaining citizenship by a foreign citizen, but also the grounds for its deprivation.
Those grounds mainly include a submission of forged or invalid documents or reporting of false information based on which the decision to grant citizenship was made, as well as a record of committing crimes by a citizen.
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion about the deprivation of citizenship obtained by a Citizenship by Investment Program. Based on the example of a recent high-profile court case from St. Kitts and Nevis, we will examine what may be the reasons for deprivation of investment citizenship.
Factual circumstances
Film company MSR Media SKN produced several films on the island of St. Kitts in 2019-2020; the administration of the island paid the company a remuneration of 150 thousand US dollars per film, due to a high contribution to increasing the recognition of the island. Later, the island administration began to pay the company's remuneration in CBI (Citizenship by Investment) shares, and the film company, thanks to its contribution to the creation and development of the film industry on the island and the creation of jobs, received official status as the first approved government beneficiary of the Citizenship by Investment Program of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Meanwhile, another company, the Chinese Caribbean Galaxy, became a developer in a project to construct a prison on the island of St. Kitts, where the island administration also paid for the work in CBI shares.
Moreover, Caribbean Galaxy was allowed to sell the received shares at any price at its discretion, which led to the fact that St. Kitts and Nevis passports could be purchased at a more than 60% discount on the migration market. Furthermore, Caribbean Galaxy was granted the right to independently verify applicants without involving the authorities.
Film company MSR Media SKN, as the official representative of the program, could not help but to pay attention to this situation and act as a plaintiff against Caribbean Galaxy and the administration of St. Kitts and Nevis. In its allegations, MSR Media SKN points out that the scheme of obtaining citizenship based on shares received by Caribbean Galaxy is illegal, because the applicants did not actually contribute to the budget of Saint Kitts and Nevis in the amount established by the program.
As a result of drawing attention to these circumstances, an audit was carried out on the migration cases of some applicants who had already received citizenship of Saint Kitts and Nevis. The citizenship of some individuals was terminated on the grounds of violation of the established procedure for obtaining citizenship.
REVERA Private Clients lawyers will monitor the development of the case and other cases of deprivation of citizenship.
In the meantime, we would like to draw your attention to the following. Citizenship by Investment programs require the contribution of specific amounts to the budget of a particular state, so you, as an applicant, must retain documents confirming the transfer of funds.
There can be two legal ways:
- signing a service agreement with a provider company licensed by the state government to work within the framework of the investment program. In this case, you can transfer money to the account of the provider company, and it will legally transfer the money to the state budget.
- direct payment of the investment contribution from your current account to the account of the country’s fund, which was specially created for the Citizenship by Investment program.
We recommend storing all documents for at least 3 years from the date of citizenship.
In this case, you will avoid the possible risks of deprivation of citizenship on formal grounds and the circumstances involving the provision of false documents or false information.
Read more interesting information and legal assessment of migration programs on our Telegram channel.
Author: Yaroslavna Zadesenskaya
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