Asian AngleAs Myanmar seals corporate data, investors may be implicated in junta’s bid to evade sanctions

The junta’s move to shut access to the MyCO database will shield military-linked shareholdings and help establish front companies to evade sanctions

The inability to do due diligence gives foreign investors itching to return all the plausible deniability they need to get in bed with the generals

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The junta has been sensitive to published reports about its self-enrichment, including an exposé that Min Aung Hlaing’s (pictured) children’s bank accounts and other assets were found in Bangkok. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 8:30am, 9 Apr 2023Updated: 7:22pm, 12 Apr 2023

In a little-noticed move in September 2022, Myanmar’s military government shut public access to a key part of its online corporate registry to shield the shareholdings of the senior leadership and their families, and to safeguard the establishment of front companies created to evade international sanctions.

The Myanmar Companies Online (MyCO) fee-based platform was established with Japanese technical help in August 2018 in accordance with the country’s 2017 Law on Corporations, under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

MyCO listed not just the publicly available corporate information for 120,000 firms, but also detailed personal information on both active and former directors and shareholders, including their ownership stakes, date of appointment, ID numbers, addresses and birth dates.

The public corporate information is still available but the detailed personal information no longer is, although a leaks publisher, Distributed Denial of Secrets, has released the data through February 2021 in response to the military’s coup that month.

What is the State Administrative Council (SAC), as the junta is formally called, trying to hide?