as a limited company.

However, the figures do reveal the huge scale of company registration relative to some of the islands' tiny populations: 47,161 companies have listed directors from the Isle of Man – representing one British company for every 1.8 residents of the island.

The figure is even more stark for the secrecy haven of the British Virgin Islands, where there is one director listed for every 1.3 residents of the islands, for a total of 17,959 UK businesses, past and present.

On the tiny Channel Island of Sark, there have been 24 current and former UK company directors for every resident of the island.

Many of the key figures involved in the "Sark Lark", as it was known, emigrated when the island's controversial practices came under scrutiny a decade ago.scattered across the world. Atlas Corporate Services operated from Dubai and the Seychelles with six sham directors purportedly controlling more than 5,400 international companies.

Another pair of British expats, Sarah and Edward Petre-Mears, appeared to have a global empire of more than 2,250 directorships between them – run, initially, from their home in Sark, and then from a collection of addresses on the tiny Caribbean island of Nevis.

Writing in the Guardian in the wake of the initial findings, and before the latest figures came to light, the business secretary, Vince Cable, warned against the practice of using sham directors based in offshore territories. "[We] must identify and stop the minority who sail too close to the wind in order to protect the UK's reputation as a trusted place to