I don't get it. Most companies registered in the state I live in, for example, are not actually located here. They simply receive mail through their registered agent there. Why would this be news?
It's not news. It's interesting because of Polymarket's size - $8bn traded in a month up 8x from a year back, controversy - $400k on military secrets, drama - FBI ramming the CEO's pad and the like.
Why wouldn't they be allowed to? If (suppose) the UK completely banned the sale of tobacco under any circumstances should a UK citizen be forbidden from investing in a US tobacco company? Why?
Polymarket is forbidden to sell their product within the US. That doesn't mean they can't take investment from or employ or even be headquartered in the US.
to be fair, empty non-existing official office is nothing new. iirc, Delaware has a warehouse that's official residence of hundreds of corporations (for tax reasons)
I don't understand the rest of the article, tho... It complains that company that (officially) left the US market and already blocks US ips from participating... isn't doing enough? Officially there's no ground to demand more
If you really want to solve the problem - start hunting down unofficial means. Investigate influencers that started mentioning Polymarket out of the blue. Look into news outlets that decided to start mentioning polymarket as supposed proxy of popular opinion. Start advertizing campaigns against gambling addiction the same way as against smoking
It’s not for tax reasons. It’s for legal reasons. You can’t escape taxes just by putting your headquarters in a certain location, but where your registered agent is controls your jurisdiction for disputes.
The issue wasn't that the CEO was missing when they dropped by the Panama address. Rather it was that the (supposed) registered agent didn't know who they were.
If I say "contact my lawyer" and you show up to his office and the receptionist informs you that I'm not a client ...
There's an easy way for polymarket to have a nice office in a nice city in USA: legalize it there and have nice enough regulations and incentives for it to move there.
It would help a lot actually for protecting people's money instead of driving it offshore.
But it doesn't look like making USA compete in this $15B market is NPR's goal with this article.
"NPR finds 'no sign' of Polymarket's office; sources say the reporting team was 'deeply unsettled' to find a company operating without a mandatory 40-minute 'Land Acknowledgment' in the lobby."
There is nothing to see here. Thousands of businesses, based both inside and outside the country, use a legal address where they don't have an office. Literally every out-of-state Delaware-registered firm does it.
It’s such clickbait to purposely conflate the word headquarters with legal domicile / registered agent. I mean Garmin, Medtronic, Accenture, Aon etc are all non-us businesses but no one shows up in Switzerland looking for Garmin, they go to Kansas…
Not the first time. Tether's "bank" for multiple years had been a tiny house at Bahamas, barely barely as big as a gas station shop. And supposedly it held 100+ billions real US dollars :) . These scammers aren't concerning themselves with even a false facade, as long as government explicitly allows them to operate. And no bribes... ahem... lobbying is involved.
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[ 4.2 ms ] story [ 53.8 ms ] threadThe law firm at that address was not their registered agent. Their ToS mandated arbitration with an entity that doesn’t exist.
See also: Polymarket gamblers threaten to kill me... 1090 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47397822
If it was just your average company it wouldn't be very interesting.
Polymarket is forbidden to sell their product within the US. That doesn't mean they can't take investment from or employ or even be headquartered in the US.
I don't understand the rest of the article, tho... It complains that company that (officially) left the US market and already blocks US ips from participating... isn't doing enough? Officially there's no ground to demand more
If you really want to solve the problem - start hunting down unofficial means. Investigate influencers that started mentioning Polymarket out of the blue. Look into news outlets that decided to start mentioning polymarket as supposed proxy of popular opinion. Start advertizing campaigns against gambling addiction the same way as against smoking
If I say "contact my lawyer" and you show up to his office and the receptionist informs you that I'm not a client ...
The only purpose I could see for this intro is to prime the reader negatively before any argument.
It would help a lot actually for protecting people's money instead of driving it offshore.
But it doesn't look like making USA compete in this $15B market is NPR's goal with this article.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panama_Papers#Illegal_activiti...
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/the-panama-pape...
(Wow. It's only been 10 years since the leak occurred? How time flies.)