Ugland House

Ugland House is a building located in George Town, Cayman Islands. Located on South Church Street, the building is the registered office address for 18,857 entities, including many major investment funds, international joint ventures and capital market issuers.

The building is occupied by the law firm Maples and Calder.

During his first presidential campaign, U.S. President Barack Obama referred to Ugland House, raising questions over the number of companies with a registered office in the building.

President Obama subsequently nominated Jack Lew to Treasury Secretary in 2013, despite objections that Mr. Lew had invested heavily in funds in Ugland House while he worked as an investment banker at Citigroup during the 2008 financial meltdown, with President Obama stating that he was not concerned about Mr. Lew's past financial transactions.

In 2008, the United States Government Accountability Office, an independent body of the U.S. Congress, investigated the nature of entities registered in the Cayman Islands and at Ugland House. The investigation involved reviews of documentation as well as interviews with officials from the Internal Revenue Service, Securities and Exchange Commission, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Justice, the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, and the Export-Import Bank of the United States.

The GAO found that only 5% of the entities with a registered office address at Ugland House are wholly owned by U.S. persons. Also, the GAO validated the reasons why the Cayman Islands has become a popular jurisdiction for international finance and business, including the country’s reputation "as having a stable and internationally compliant legal and regulatory system." In an interview with the GAO, representatives from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) cited "the Cayman Islands’ reputation for regulatory sophistication" and "legal protections for creditors and investors" as factors that might attract legal financial activity.

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