The UK government has set out its nine-point plan for implementation of the G20/BEPS principles on transparency of beneficial ownership. This includes the UK public register of beneficial ownership from next year and new money laundering regulations to transpose the EU Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive into UK law during 2017. The communiqué states that the UK:
1) has published a national risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing in consultation with the private sector and civil society;
2) will ensure company law and UK money laundering regulations clearly define the criteria for ownership and control that identify a natural person as the ‘beneficial owner’ of a company;
3) will also require companies to report ‘adequate, accurate and current’ beneficial ownership information to a central register from June 2016;
4) will ensure trustees of express trusts obtain and hold adequate, accurate and current beneficial ownership information for their trusts, and that domestic competent authorities have access to this information;
5) will hold in a central register the beneficial ownership information of trusts that generate tax consequences in the UK;
6) will ensure that financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs) undertaking customer due diligence are able to access information held on the central register of company beneficial ownership information;
7) will effect mechanisms to share beneficial ownership information, in line with bilateral and multilateral agreements, and work to improve international cooperation;
8) has committed to further action to improve company transparency, and has amended company law to:
a) prohibit UK companies from issuing bearer shares and require existing bearer shares to be surrendered and exchanged for registered shares, or cancelled and compensated; and
b) prohibit use of corporate directors, with exceptions, and update how legal duties apply to shadow directors to align more closely with legal duties for individual directors; and
9) has committed to consult on extending beneficial ownership transparency to foreign companies investing in high value property or bidding on UK public contracts.
The UK government has set out its nine-point plan for implementation of the G20/BEPS principles on transparency of beneficial ownership. This includes the UK public register of beneficial ownership from next year and new money laundering regulations to transpose the EU Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive into UK law during 2017. The communiqué states that the UK:
1) has published a national risk assessment of money laundering and terrorist financing in consultation with the private sector and civil society;
2) will ensure company law and UK money laundering regulations clearly define the criteria for ownership and control that identify a natural person as the ‘beneficial owner’ of a company;
3) will also require companies to report ‘adequate, accurate and current’ beneficial ownership information to a central register from June 2016;
4) will ensure trustees of express trusts obtain and hold adequate, accurate and current beneficial ownership information for their trusts, and that domestic competent authorities have access to this information;
5) will hold in a central register the beneficial ownership information of trusts that generate tax consequences in the UK;
6) will ensure that financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs) undertaking customer due diligence are able to access information held on the central register of company beneficial ownership information;
7) will effect mechanisms to share beneficial ownership information, in line with bilateral and multilateral agreements, and work to improve international cooperation;
8) has committed to further action to improve company transparency, and has amended company law to:
a) prohibit UK companies from issuing bearer shares and require existing bearer shares to be surrendered and exchanged for registered shares, or cancelled and compensated; and
b) prohibit use of corporate directors, with exceptions, and update how legal duties apply to shadow directors to align more closely with legal duties for individual directors; and
9) has committed to consult on extending beneficial ownership transparency to foreign companies investing in high value property or bidding on UK public contracts.
