Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing nominees here in Thailand, specifically business nominees. For those who are unaware, nominees are actually illegal in Thailand and there is what's called the Foreign Business Act here in Thailand which prohibits certain types of business activities from being owned by foreigners outright. So there may be some exceptions, there may be certain business activities that a foreign national can undertake oftentimes through a corporate structure without the need for any type of special license specifically under the Foreign Business Act. Meanwhile Americans may be able to avail themselves of what is called the US-Thai Treaty of Amity in order to be certified as an Amity Treaty Company and if that happens that company is granted National Treatment i.e. it will be treated as if it is a Thai Company. So for purposes of the Foreign Business Act the Amity Treaty may be a good remedy for the issues that arise with the Foreign Business Act. Now that said, that only applies to American citizens; other nationalities have to kind of deal with the Foreign Business Act as it is. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, that is bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Hundreds of firms probed in nominee hunt. Quoting directly: "The Business Development Department has investigated 439 companies suspected of acting as nominees for foreign firms." Quoting further: "The inspections," they are inspecting too, we have discussed this in other videos. There was a recent raid down in Phuket where I believe a lot of things were even seized. That was primarily dealing with land holding companies but as we discussed in that video, I thought there might be broader implications and lo and behold, look where things are moving. Quoting further: "The inspections were in collaboration with the Tourism Department, the Special Investigations Department, the Tourist Police Bureau and the Immigration Bureau." So this has ramifications much more broadly than what we first saw.

I made videos at the time and yet again I got burned a lot in the comments saying I was overreacting, trying to fearmonger, create panic; not my purpose, that is not my purpose in making these videos. I am simply trying to make videos to sort of warn folks and explain to them there is a way to do things in Thailand, there is a way not to and even when you are told, "oh everything will be fine, we have done this this way for years", it may not be the correct way to do it and you may find yourself in a situation where it costs a great deal of money, time, and resources in sort of rectifying something that you thought was done right the first time. So again, the issue of nominees can be a real problem here in Thailand. For those who are concerned about this, it is probably not a bad idea to contact a legal professional, gain some insight and guidance into how best to proceed.