Offshore financial centres with ties to Britain are “among the hardest places in the world to evade taxes or launder money”, claims a group representing legal and accountancy firms.

The IFC Forum, which represents firms operating in several offshore jurisdictions including Bermuda, argues that while the Panama Papers revelations have highlighted that some jurisdictions “have fallen markedly behind in the global efforts to combat money laundering and tax evasion”, British territories are not among them.

“By contrast, the Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies, being British international financial centres, are rated as having among the highest regulatory standards in the world by all international assessments, including by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Financial Action Task Force,” the statement reads.

The IFC Forum adds that British IFCs automatically exchange tax information with the UK and US governments and are among the first adopters of the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard (CRS), which will extend information exchange to most other countries.

They were also early signatories to the OECD’s Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters, a multilateral agreement providing for tax co-operation between its participants.

“British IFCs are consequently among the hardest places in the world to evade taxes or launder money,” the IFC Forum argues.

“These financial centres have laws and courts based on those of the UK and many lawyers and professionals educated, trained and qualified in the UK.

“The financial regulators in the British IFCs are also recognised members of the International Organisation of Securities Commissions, the global standard setter for the securities sector. The key appeal of the British IFCs is the trust placed in them by institutional investors, and so high regulatory standards are of paramount importance to them.”

Richard Hay, counsel to the IFC Forum, said: “It is wrong to bracket all small financial centres together as so-called secrecy jurisdictions.

“British IFC regulatory standards, including on tracking of beneficial ownership, are judged in peer reviews and authoritative academic studies to be among the best in the world. ? British IFC information exchange standards are also at the leading edge of global standards.

“The IFC Forum calls on all financial centres — large and small — to adopt the information collection and exchange protocols endorsed by the international community and which are commonplace in the British IFCs.”

The IFC Forum is a multi-jurisdictional, private-sector organisation with international law and accounting member firms operating across a number of British Crown Dependencies, Overseas Territories and other IFCs, including Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, Guernsey, Gibraltar, Jersey and the Isle of Man.