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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?
On the other hand, most of the companies registered in Delaware are not trying to dodge US federal regulations. Polymarket is prohibited from operating in the US market. Nevertheless they have a substantial customer base in the US, and the part left unsaid in the NPR story, is that they’re probably also headquartered in the US. Almost definitely a violation of either gambling or securities regulations.
They acknowledge this in the article as well, surprisingly enough.

> Corporate law experts say while there is nothing illegal about housing a business inside a shell company, the practice is often a strategic move to protect a firm's wealth or shield it against lawsuits and action from government regulators.

What is the thought process of someone writing this? Does this article have any meaningful or critical thought behind it?

It is indeed already normal for rich people to do things that are sketchy as hell.

Maybe let's make it not normal?

> there was no sign of Polymarket, nor the entity it does business as

The law firm at that address was not their registered agent. Their ToS mandated arbitration with an entity that doesn’t exist.

this is a good explainer video that talks about why Polymarket maintains a Panama HQ instead of a US one and why it has two different sites (.us vs .com). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=seNwZhK4UdA
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.

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.

> Why would this be news?

Mostly because international litigation is, let's say, fraught issues (as in "good luck!")

The point being, yes, we all know this, but also it's done purely to bypass taxation which shouldn't ever be accepted.
If you follow Apple's official address to a lawyer's office in Delaware, don't be surprised that Tim Cook isn't there to greet you.
Apple is registered in California, as both their website ( https://investor.apple.com/faq/default.aspx ) and their most recent form 8-K ( https://d18rn0p25nwr6d.cloudfront.net/CIK-0000320193/beb2c24... ) confirm.
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 ...

Indeed, their registered agent address is 1209 North Orange Street in Wilmington.
For what it's worth the only "official address" I could find was Apple Park in Cupertino.
It's an interesting "problem". The cities we have now exist because businesses and people want to be located in the same geographical area to maximize, well, doing business.

Now the opposite is happening. Businesses have no incentive being located in the same physical area they do business in. In fact, they have opposite incentives. The closer they are to their customers and workers, the less they can do things with impunity.

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.
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…
But if you did show up to their Swiss address presumably the representative there would know who you were talking about and be able to confirm that they are in fact a client.
Switzerland is a tax evasion heaven too. Companies don't go there for the "predictable legal framework" lol, they go there to do shady schemes of tax "optimization".
Is that giant building you can see from the highway in Kansas their headquarters? I was surprised to see it.
Why are Americans allowed to invest in a business that would be illegal if based in the US? Why can they be patrons? Idgi
Most of the things you buy are manufactured under conditions that aren't legal in the US as well.

It doesn't make it acceptable, just endemic

Breaking the law doesn’t follow the transitive property. Many businesses that people interact with have done illegal things. You typically can do business with someone as long as you aren’t breaking the law in doing so.
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.

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.
Isn't this grounds for having their domain name revoked?
Presumably it's grounds for the registrar to send them a notice to update their information. But also having a domain name shouldn't require an impressum. The current domain registration system is complete BS.
Wut?
Polymarket is based in NYC, in Soho, on Crosby Street. Knock yourself out if you want to go find anyone there.
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.
So Polymarket is a Web3 outfit?
It might as well be a regular website. The crypto bit adds nothing since 99.9% of users just use the webUI.
"Court filings show the law office also did work for FTX"

If the shoe fits..

Polymarket engages in scammy behavior?? Wait, isn’t that their entire business model?
"the wildly popular prediction market site that has flourished in President Trump's second term."

The only purpose I could see for this intro is to prime the reader negatively before any argument.

Water is wet
I'm shocked--shocked--that a company with the integrity and upright moral character of Polymarket would have their registered agent located in Panama.

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.)

I'm sure this is true for thousands and thousands of companies.
"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."
What happened to the quality of NPR over the last dozen or so years it's just gotten worse and worse.
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.