Article 5 - Exchange of Information Upon Request - Guernsey

Article 5 Exchange of Information Upon Request 1. The competent authority of the requested Party shall provide upon request information for the purposes referred to in Article 1. Such information shall be exchanged without regard to whether the requested Party needs such information for its own tax purposes or whether the conduct being investigated would constitute a crime under the laws of the requested Party if such conduct occurred in the requested Party. The competent authority of the requesting Party shall only make a request for information pursuant to this article when it is unable to obtain the requested information by other means, except where recourse to such means would give rise to disproportionate difficulty. 2. If the information in the possession of the competent authority of the requested Party is not sufficient to enable it to comply with the request for information, the requested Party shall use all relevant information gathering measures necessary to provide the requesting Party with the information requested, notwithstanding that the requested Party may not need such information for its own tax purposes. 3. If specifically requested by the competent authority of the requesting Party, the competent authority of the requested Party shall provide information under this Article, to the extent allowable under its domestic laws, in the form of depositions of witnesses and authenticated copies of original records. 4. Each Contracting Party shall ensure that it has the authority, in accordance with the terms of this agreement, to obtain and provide, through its competent authority, upon request: ( a ) information held by banks, other financial institutions, and any person, including nominees and trustees, acting in an agency or fiduciary capacity; ( b ) information regarding the legal and beneficial ownership of companies, partnerships, collective investment funds or schemes, trusts, foundations, Anstalten and other persons, including, within the constraints of Article 2, ownership information on all such persons in an ownership chain; ( c ) in the case of collective investment funds or schemes, information on shares, units and other interests; in the case of trusts, information on settlors, trustees and beneficiaries; in the case of foundations, information on founders, members of the foundation council and beneficiaries; and equivalent information in the case of entities that are neither trusts nor foundations. 5. This Agreement does not create an obligation on the Contracting Parties to obtain or provide ownership information with respect to publicly traded companies or public collective investment funds or schemes unless such information can be obtained without giving rise to disproportionate difficulties. 6. The competent authority of the requesting Party shall provide the following information to the competent authority of the requested Party when making a request for information under the Agreement to demonstrate the foreseeable relevance of the information to the request: ( a ) the identity of the person under examination or investigation; ( b ) the period for which the information is requested; ( c ) the nature of the information requested and the form in which the requesting Party would prefer to receive it; ( d ) the tax purpose for which the information is sought; ( e ) grounds for believing that the information requested is present in the requested Party or is in the possession of, or is in the control of, or obtainable by, a person within the jurisdiction of the requested Party; ( f ) to the extent known, the name and address of any person believed to be in possession or in control of or able to obtain the requested information; ( g ) a statement that the request is in conformity with the laws and administrative practices of the requesting Party, that if the requested information was within the jurisdiction of the requesting Party then the competent authority of the requesting Party would be able to obtain the information under the laws of the requesting Party or in the normal course of administrative practice and that it is in conformity with this Agreement; ( h ) a statement that the requesting Party has pursued all means available in its own territory to obtain the information, except those that would give rise to disproportionate difficulties. 7. The competent authority of the requested Party shall acknowledge receipt of the request to the competent authority of the requesting Party and shall use its best endeavours to forward the requested information as promptly as possible to the requesting Party.