Statutory Agents

Recently our bank has received an application for an account opening from one of our "bigger" business customers, with many accounts and quite a bit of money with our institution. The application is to open an account for a company based in Turks&Caicos, however they did apply for and receive a EIN through the IRS. Where the customer has a lot of clout, there is a strong push from executive management to open the account.

Within the Articles of Organization that they submitted, it states that "The Company appoints John Doe, whose address is xx xx Phoenix Arizona, as its initial statutory agenty to receive service of legal process in the United States of America." (I replaced the real information for obvious purposes) In an email conversation with the CFO of the company that is opening the account he stated "the business will not be registered in any state in the US."

In my research of this topic, as this is the only foreign based account we've ever run across, it is my understanding that this company needs to be registered with the state of Arizona in order to comply with Federal Regulations. I wanted to pose this to the forum to see if anyone can either confirm or deny this, and if anyone has any additional guidance I would be MORE than appreciative.

I am just a BSA "baby", and have only been on the job since May, with minimal to zero training, taking over for someone who retired after 37 years. Please help me out! SOS!

What does the company do, does it actually do any business in the US, why are they approaching your bank if you don't typically do international banking, many, many questions need answering.

I have seen management get all bug-eyed over these deals before until the regulators show up and head them their head on a plate unless you have done significant due diligence and can answer any question the regulators throw at you regarding this company and their operations.

Sorry, it is a little hard to get anymore specific without getting into significant details about the company.

PT - We do a lot of business with foreign individuals and business entities. It's not out of the ordinary for a foreign business to appoint an agent in the US to receive legal notification or other contractual documentation.

Randy is on point, you would need to provide more information to get any useful feedback. If you plan to do so, I would suggest moving this discussion to the Private Forums.

Excellent, thank you both very much, I will go ahead and move into the Private Forum.