Ted Cruz Failed To Disclose Ties To Caribbean Holding Company

Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz potentially violated ethics rules by failing to publicly disclose his financial relationship with a Caribbean-based holding company during the 2012 campaign, a review of financial disclosure and company documents by TIME shows. The relationship originated with a $6,000 investment Cruz made more than a decade ago in a Jamaican private equity firm founded by his college roommate.

When Cruz later reported the financial relationship in 2013, he failed to comply with Senate rules requiring full identification of the holding company and its location, triggering an inquiry by Senate Select Committee on Ethics staff and a second amended disclosure. After additional inquiries by TIME this week, Cruz said he is now in the process making further corrections to his disclosure.

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In an amended financial disclosure form filed Oct. 1, Cruz said he still holds a promissory note from a Kingston-based company called Caribbean Equity Partners Investment Holdings LTD, worth between $100,000 and $250,000. No company with that name is registered in Jamaica. There is however a dormant Jamaica-based private equity firm called Caribbean Equity Partners Limited of which Cruz was a founding director and preferential shareholder, according to documents filed with the Jamaican government and reviewed by TIME. The firm held $100 million in assets under management in the mid-2000s, according to local news reports, with a focus on service and tourism investments in Jamaica and the Caribbean.

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Cruz says he failed to include the promissory note among his assets on his first financial disclosure in July 2012 when he was a candidate for the U.S. Senate because he had forgotten about it. “In 2011, there was an inadvertent omission of this promissory note, and after a conversation with my college roommate I remembered it,” Cruz says. Cruz’s initial filing was made in the heat of his campaign. He was fined $200 for filing the document late.

Read more: http://swampland.time.com/2013/10/18/ted-cruz-failed-to-disclose-ties-to-jamaican-holding-company/#ixzz2i58nnO8G