Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing the US-Thai Treaty of Amity as well as “nominee structures”. So I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from The Phuket News, that is thephuketnews.com, the article is titled: Patong businesses raided in nominee crackdown. Quoting directly: "Officers from Phuket Immigration led a coordinated task force in a series of raids at five business locations in Patong on Thursday (October 23) as part of a nationwide campaign to crack down on four nominees and illegal business operations."

So as discussed in other videos, the Thais are getting increasingly serious about nominee structures as well as restricted occupations and restricted business activities for foreigners in Thailand. It's just of concern to Thai authorities, and I think it is going to be of increasing concern as time goes on.

As I'll get to here in a moment, as the title of the video suggests, the Amity Treaty obviates the need for these type of structures. Quoting further though: "Officers also inspected two nearby restaurants believe to be owned and operated by foreign nationals. In one case, an Israeli man admitted to managing the restaurant, handling sales and receiving payments himself. Business registration and tax documents were seized for investigation to determine whether nominee structures were being used to conceal foreign control." The point of this video is, under the provisions of the US-Thai Treaty of Amity, Americans doing business in Thailand are granted what's called National Treatment. That means that they can own their companies in the same manner as do Thais, so it is possible for an American to own a company certified under the Amity Treaty 100% under Thai law notwithstanding the Foreign Business Act and the provisions thereto. The point I'm trying to make is yeah, that results in you not needing to have these nominees to begin with in order to meet the pretextual requirements of the Foreign Business Act.

So the point of this video is, if you are an American and you are looking to do business in Thailand, something to really seriously focus on and have a look at, is the possibility of getting certified under the US-Thai Treaty of Amity. Now not all business activities can be certified; even the Treaty itself has certain restrictions as I have discussed in other videos. But that said, it is a good first place for most Americans who are looking to do business in Thailand to look, because it obviates any kind of need to have any kind of pretextual shareholding or something of this nature that could be construed to be a nominee down the road. It's an easy if you will, or straightforward way of just avoiding or mitigating that probable future risk by just not needing to have that incorporated into one's business structure to begin with.