RUTHFULLY YOURS

The state of Delaware has made itself a very comfy home for corporations to legally domicile themselves.  Many large publicly listed companies are officially Delaware corporations, in part because the Delaware Chancery Court has specialized in issues of corporate governance and is widely regarded as expert and fair.  But another component of Delaware’s legal system for registering and governing corporations is its lack of transparency compared to other states.  Owners of companies registered in Delaware can remain anonymous.  Like, for example, in Panama.

Thus, as The Free Beacon reports:

The address “1209 North Orange Street” in Wilmington, Del., has become known in recent years as the epicenter of U.S. corporate secrecy. The squat, split-level building is the official address of over 285,000 companies, many of which are looking to take advantage of Delaware’s Panama-like secrecy rules, tax incentives, and business-friendly case law.

Among those 285,000 shell companies (with no operations at all in Delaware):

Hillary and Bill Clinton quietly set up two shell companies listed at “1209 North Orange Street” in 2008 and 2013, the Washington Free Beacon has found. The names of the companies, but not their location, were first made public in tax filings released by Hillary Clinton last year.

According to records, one of the Clintons’ “1209 North Orange Street” companies is WJC, LLC, which was set up by Bill Clinton in 2008 as a pass-through for his consulting fees.

Another company at the same location, ZFS Holdings, LLC, was set up in February 2013, one week after Hillary Clinton left the State Department. Hillary Clinton received $5.5 million from her book publisher, Simon & Schuster, through the company.

The “1209 North Orange Street” building is the headquarters for the Corporation Trust Company. The firm acts as a registered agent for thousands of corporations that are not actually located in Delaware, including the Clintons’ companies.

Now, all of this is notable only because Hillary Clinton poses as a crusader against Wall Street abuses.

Hillary Clinton has promised to crack down on tax havens on the campaign trail. Referring to the Panama Papers last Wednesday, Clinton condemned “outrageous tax havens and loopholes that super-rich people across the world are exploiting in Panama and elsewhere.”

But:

The Clinton campaign declined to comment on why the Clintons, who live in New York and have no evident residential ties to Delaware, set up companies in the state.

In addition to the Clintons’ companies, their foundation also has three Delaware shell companies:

One is the Acceso Fund, LLC, which was registered by the Corporation Trust Company at 1209 North Orange Street in 2009. The Clinton Foundation has used the company to channel money to its Colombia-based private equity fund, Fondo Acceso.

The private equity fund, which is run out of the Clinton Foundation’s Bogota office, has invested in telecom and food processing companies in Colombia, the Free Beacon reported last November.

Another Clinton Foundation company, Acceso Worldwide Fund, Inc., was registered in 2013 by the Corporation Services Company, located in Wilmington, Delaware.

A third company, the Haiti Development Fund, LLC, was registered in 2010 by National Corporate Research, Ltd, located in Dover.

In Delaware, limited liability companies such as WJC, LLC, and ZFS, LLC, are not required to file annual statements disclosing their directors or owners. The Clintons also registered both companies in New York after they were established.

Hillary should be asked why she and her foundation are hiding behind Delaware’s secrecy laws.  But of course, she grants interviews only to friendly journalists political operatives with bylines.