By Alan Hughes

As a leading oÂshore Ênancial center and in keeping with its constant drive toward the development and implementation of robust, modern and progressive corporate products, the British Virgin Islands (BVI) has recently introduced the Micro Business Companies Act (the “MBC Act”) – bespoke and innovative legislation designed speciÊcally toward developing and supporting the ever-burgeoning micro/small business market.

By broad deÊnition, micro businesses are typically characterized as being smaller style unsophisticated, non-Ênancial sector corporate entities or structures usually having one owner and perhaps a handful of employees. Annual turnover, shareholder movement and asset base are generally of a limited or modest nature. Accordingly, many such micro-businesses have little or even no need for the often complicated and unnecessary constitutional and regulatory requirements which one may ordinarily encounter with standard or generic style corporate structures.