Theo

Not really. You can have as directors and shareholders other personal or legal entities to appear, but in reality still you are not covered. That's common.

Insider trading is illegal activity in almost every country that has a stockmarket and when you have IRS or FTC going after you many doors open. Your supposed director unless he is completely moron which I doubt will have you sign a paper mentioning that in case of illegal activity you take fully responsibility. Most possible you already signed that without knowing it. This happens also for the inland taxation. Your offshore shareholder usually gets taxed big time, but since he is acting on your behalf he needs to cover his ass again so he will not pay taxes. I can tell very few from here know that.

Another real example: FTC due to can spam law went after many adult co. One of them (advertises here) is incorporated in Cyprus, unlike the rest that got fined big time, they got just a warning to stop spamming and nothing else. The difference here is that although Cyprus is following EU legislation where there are various spamming regulations, these are idle and it would be extremely hard to start a case. If they were american citizens I don't think they would be covered either, not just in Cyprus, nowhere.

Every option has pros and cons. There's no perfect option that covers everything and everyone.