From left, U.S. Sens. Tom Carper and Chris Coons. Photos: Diego Radzinschi/ALM

A government transparency group has urged Delaware's congressional delegation to introduce legislation to create a national database of beneficial owners of corporations and limited liability companies.

Delaware Coalition for Open Government said Tuesday that it had contacted U.S. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Delaware; U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, D-Delaware; and U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester, D-Delaware, last week asking them to sponsor a bill aimed at helping law enforcement fight criminal activity associated with LLCs, after a series of high-profile cases involving the secretive entities came to light in recent years.

DelCOG said federal legislation was needed to disclose the identities of beneficial owners, who are not required in most states to provide names, telephone numbers and addresses when registering to do business.

“The secrecy of both domestic and foreign beneficial ownership, which results as a consequence of this gaping loophole in corporate statutes, enables bad actors to commit crimes, hinders law-enforcement investigations, and impedes accountability for illegal actions,” the group said in a statement.

“The problem must be addressed through federal legislation. Delaware's congressional delegation must act to maintain Delaware's preeminence as the gold standard of corporate law.”

Nick Wasileski, DelCOG's president, said he contacted the Wilmington offices of Coons, Carper and Blunt Rochester on March 11, but has not yet received a response.

On Tuesday, the delegation said in a statement that a “common sense, national framework would strengthen our ability” to fight financial crimes, but stopped short of saying whether they would sponsor such a measure.

“We continue to support federal efforts to prevent shell corporations from being used for nefarious purposes, such as financing terrorism or facilitating money laundering,” the delegation said.

DelCOG's request, however, highlighted an ongoing debate in Delaware about proper oversight of alternative entities, which are registered through the Department of State's Division of Corporations.

DelCOG has argued for greater transparency of LLCs, since the release of the Panama Papers in 2016 revealed how the wealthy secretly store assets in offshore shell companies.

LLCs have also been linked to separate schemes by Jack Abramoff, a disgraced lobbyist, and Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, to launder money, and Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney and “fixer,” created a Delaware LLC in October 2016 to make a hush-money payment to Stephanie Clifford, an adult-film actress who said she had engaged in a sexual relationship with Trump.

Last year, former Delaware Attorney General Matt Denn petitioned the Court of Chancery to shut down four Delaware limited liability companies linked to classified advertising website Backpage.com, saying the entities had been used to operate a sex trafficking conspiracy.

DelCOG argues that Delaware's lenient formation system enables criminal conduct among a small population of the more than 974,000 active LLCs in the state, and hampers efforts by law enforcement to weed out bad actors.

In 2017, the group partnered with state Rep. John A. Kowalko Jr., D-Newark South, to introduce a bill in the General Assembly that would have forced registered agents to screen for bad actors and required LLCs to detail the specific nature of their business if they plan to invest in industries “vulnerable to internal sabotage.”

The bill, however, encountered staunch opposition from many in Delaware's legal community, as well as Secretary of State Jeffrey W. Bullock and was eventually tabled in committee.

Opponents of that measure instead argued that changes should be made at the federal level, in order to preserve the enabling framework that makes Delaware the preferred state for business formation.

Last year, Bullock and Denn signed letters to the U.S. House Committee on Financial Services supporting the creation of the kind of national database that DelCOG is proposing.

A spokesman for Bullock said his position had not changed, but both Bullock and Denn declined to comment any further Tuesday. A spokesman for current Attorney General Kathy Jennings said she “shares the position” Denn and Bullock took last year.

Under the proposal, law enforcement would be able to access the information of beneficial owners through the U.S. Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, which collects data for use in investigations into financial crimes.

Wasileski said that he believed he and Bullock were now “definitely on the same side of the table” when it comes to policing LLCs.

“I think the letter was pretty significant,” he said.

Wasileski said he reached out to Jennings and leadership from state Senate and House of Representatives regarding the proposal, but has yet to receive a response. A federal bill, he said, would protect Delaware's reputation and avoid the problems associated with the ill-stated state bill, which was seen as putting Delaware at a competitive disadvantage to other states.

“Federal legislation would put everybody on a level playing field,” Wasileski said.