We are releasing a Saas service that is all legal everywhere in the World, but may be used by our customers to break the Terms of Service of very big companies, which makes it grey hat.
Normally I wouldn't even look at offshore, except we are talking about billion dollar companies, and one in particular (FB) tends to try to bully this type of business with legal threats, because they know small companies cannot afford litigation, which has led to several similar businesses having been forced to shut down in the past.
Therefore, I am hoping to find a structure can keep the business running even if we do get sued and that protects my identity to the max extent.
Since US court orders and subpoenas are not recognized in most offshore jurisdictions, what a Belize lawyer advised me to do is to open several IBCs in various jurisdictions, and if they go after one legally in that country, just close it and start processing payments with another, change domain and brand name if needed.
So it'll become a game of cat and mouse which is fine by me as long as they can't get to me personally.
I think however reading through these forums there could be better structures especially to protect privacy.
Current Details:
I'm a EU citizen. My business partner is US citizen but we fully trust each other so its fine if only one of us owns the company officially.
I currently have a Belize IBC, US LLC and EU company.
What we need to operate the Saas business:
- Subscription Processor: Something like 2CO (I heard in this forum that they dont support Belize and other offshore jurisdictions, but their site says otherwise: Global Payment Processing | 2Checkout )
- Invoicing Solution: would be nice if we could invoice from a different company than the one associated with the business accounts we receive payments to.
- Safe business bank account to keep assets and keep reinvesting them into the business, must provide debit cards, paypal would be nice
- Domain and hosting that cannot be seized and cannot lead to us personally.
- limited to no accounting like Belize would be extremely valuable since we use a lot of services that don't really provide receipts.
My first idea upon reading the forum for a few hours is:
-Opening several IBCs with darks
-Open bank accounts and get payment processing for these IBCs
-Open another "official" IBC and bank account to transfer the money from these "darks IBCs" in case one of them gets sued.
-In case its not possible to get merchant accounts with available jurisdictions/darks, another laywer suggested me to open a US or UK LLC owned by one of the IBCs. (or can transfer ownership to the IBC after merchant accounts approval), but I'm not sure if this would kill the privacy.
My questions:
1- Do you have better suggestions regarding the structure?
2- Darks or no darks?
3 - Which jurisdiction should I be looking at? and what countries to bank safely?
4- Suggestions for subscription billing and invoicing solution?
Many thanks for any help!
Normally I wouldn't even look at offshore, except we are talking about billion dollar companies, and one in particular (FB) tends to try to bully this type of business with legal threats, because they know small companies cannot afford litigation, which has led to several similar businesses having been forced to shut down in the past.
Therefore, I am hoping to find a structure can keep the business running even if we do get sued and that protects my identity to the max extent.
Since US court orders and subpoenas are not recognized in most offshore jurisdictions, what a Belize lawyer advised me to do is to open several IBCs in various jurisdictions, and if they go after one legally in that country, just close it and start processing payments with another, change domain and brand name if needed.
So it'll become a game of cat and mouse which is fine by me as long as they can't get to me personally.
I think however reading through these forums there could be better structures especially to protect privacy.
Current Details:
I'm a EU citizen. My business partner is US citizen but we fully trust each other so its fine if only one of us owns the company officially.
I currently have a Belize IBC, US LLC and EU company.
What we need to operate the Saas business:
- Subscription Processor: Something like 2CO (I heard in this forum that they dont support Belize and other offshore jurisdictions, but their site says otherwise: Global Payment Processing | 2Checkout )
- Invoicing Solution: would be nice if we could invoice from a different company than the one associated with the business accounts we receive payments to.
- Safe business bank account to keep assets and keep reinvesting them into the business, must provide debit cards, paypal would be nice
- Domain and hosting that cannot be seized and cannot lead to us personally.
- limited to no accounting like Belize would be extremely valuable since we use a lot of services that don't really provide receipts.
My first idea upon reading the forum for a few hours is:
-Opening several IBCs with darks
-Open bank accounts and get payment processing for these IBCs
-Open another "official" IBC and bank account to transfer the money from these "darks IBCs" in case one of them gets sued.
-In case its not possible to get merchant accounts with available jurisdictions/darks, another laywer suggested me to open a US or UK LLC owned by one of the IBCs. (or can transfer ownership to the IBC after merchant accounts approval), but I'm not sure if this would kill the privacy.
My questions:
1- Do you have better suggestions regarding the structure?
2- Darks or no darks?
3 - Which jurisdiction should I be looking at? and what countries to bank safely?
4- Suggestions for subscription billing and invoicing solution?
Many thanks for any help!
