Ireland: The Central Register of Beneficial Ownership of Companies and Industrial and Provident Societies

The Companies Registration Office has provided an update on the creation of the Central Register of Beneficial Ownership of Companies and Industrial and Provident Societies, following the making of the European Union (Anti-Money Laundering: Beneficial Ownership Of Corporate Entities) Regulations 2019: see here. These Regulations contain the obligations on companies to maintain beneficial ownership information as well as the framework for the operation of the new central register. They replace the European Union (Anti-Money Laundering: Beneficial Ownership of Corporate Entities) Regulations 2016.

The intention is that the Registrar of Companies will act as the Registrar of the beneficial ownership register and that online filing by companies will begin on 22 June 2019 (the date that Part 3 of the 2019 Regulations comes into force). The deadline for filing beneficial ownership information is five months after 22 June 2019, for companies incorporated before this date; companies incorporated on or after 22 June 2019 must file within five months of their incorporation.

Note

In the UK, the House of Commons Library has recently published a short briefing paper on beneficial ownership registers: see here. The paper describes the registers that exist in the UK as well as the position that exists in the British Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. Relevant EU law is also discussed.