A central register of beneficial ownership of corporate and other legal entities is required by the 4th EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive.
The Department of Finance will shortly make a Statutory Instrument (SI) appointing a Registrar of Beneficial Ownership of Companies and Industrial and Provident Societies who will be responsible for the establishment and maintenance of the beneficial ownership register (BOR) in respect of those particular corporate entities. It is expected that this role will be assigned as a separate legal responsibility to the Registrar of Companies.
In advance of the passing of this SI, the Registrar wishes to provide the following information to companies and industrial and provident societies in relation to how the BOR is planned to operate:
- The BOR is expected to be in place and ready to be populated from 26 June 2017.
- There is likely to a 3 month period in which to file without being in breach of the statutory duty to file (ie until 26 September 2017).
- Filing will be done through an on-line portal, there will be no paper forms and there will be no filing fee.
- The information to be filed with the BOR in respect of each beneficial owner (must be a natural person) will include the following:
- Forename & Surname
- Date of birth
- Nationality
- Residential address and Eircode
- A statement of the nature of the interest held by each beneficial owner (eg controlling shareholder)
- A statement of the extent of the interest held by each beneficial owner (eg controller of 26% of shares in company)
- The date on which each natural person was entered in the register as a beneficial owner of the corporate entity
- If no natural persons are identified there shall be entered in the register the names of the natural person(s) who hold the position(s) of senior managing official(s) of the company.
- Details of the person making the entry in the register on behalf of the company will also be required, i.e. name, postal address, e-mail address and telephone number. This information is provided by the Registrar of Companies in good faith in order to give companies and industrial and provident societies advance notice of what is expected to be required of them in relation to filing data with the BOR. Until the SI is formally passed, this information is subject to change. As soon as the SI is passed, the Registrar of Beneficial Ownership of Companies and Industrial and Provident Societies will launch an information campaign providing more definite information to companies and industrial and provident societies.
For more details, feel free to write at dublin@kelmer.com