The Securities and Investment Business Act (SIBA) — British Virgin Islands

Official text

Securities and Investment Business Act (BVI Financial Services Commission, consolidated PDF)

Status

in force, as amended

Jurisdiction

British Virgin Islands

Type

primary law

This page

summary only — the linked Act is the source

SIBA is the BVI's gateway statute for the whole investment-services industry. It defines what counts as "investment business". It prohibits carrying it on without a licence. It also provides the framework that regulates the BVI's fund products (professional, private, incubator and approved funds) and their functionaries. For the funds world its importance is structural. The mutual-fund and manager provisions, and the sub-regimes made under it, all hang off SIBA's licensing perimeter. They also depend on its definitions of "investment activity" and "investment business". Get caught by those definitions without an authorisation and you are carrying on unauthorised investment business. That is an offence under the Act.

Scope and the core mechanism

The Act works in three moves. First, it defines the perimeter: "investment activity" and "investment business" (ss.3–4). It does this by reference to the investments and activities listed in its Schedules. Second, it prohibits carrying on investment business in or from within the BVI without a licence (s.4). It sets the licensing, supervision and enforcement machinery around that. Third, it carries the mutual funds provisions. It also holds the powers used to make the detailed fund rules (the funds Regulations and the Regulatory Code). The full section-by-section text covers definitions, licensing, the conduct and enforcement powers, and the fund-specific provisions. It is searchable clause-by-clause through the Graph of rules and ask-the-law.

In practice: the licensing trigger is the activity, tested against the Schedules, not your label. A manager or arranger can be inside "investment business" without thinking of itself as a "securities firm". Map your activity to the Schedule definitions before you assume you are outside SIBA.