Yes, a publicly accessible registry would do a lot to fight tax evasion and money laundering in a number of ways.
Currently, only financial institutions are required to do beneficial ownership due diligence by the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act. Thankfully, we are seeing the amendments come into force in June, when all designated non-financial businesses and professions will need to do the same due diligence. That will include accounting agencies, money service businesses and real estate agents. Legal professionals do have to do that due diligence. Due to the Supreme Court ruling, they do not need to file suspicious transaction reports.
It does put a lot of pressure on all the professions to conduct the due diligence and now have the data. They can't say, “Well, I've tried with a client; I don't know.”
Once we have the registry in place it's very important that this data be verified through various methods so that all the various bodies that need to report, and even people looking to invest, like Ms. Watson, have the ability to do their own due diligence as well.
In a lot of ways, this will deter those bad actors from coming in the first place. Hopefully those who still want to game the system will be caught.