In UK the draft bill about increasing of transparency has been brought up for discussion

26.07.2013

The UK government has published a draft law “Transparency and trust: enhancing the transparency of UK company ownership and increasing trust in UK business”, the aim of which is the introduction of measures, which will increase the corporate’s transparency and confidence. The draft bill has been brought up for discussion.

The following measures will be suggested:

- The creation of a single register of beneficial owners of companies (which will be administrated by Companies House). The register will show the persons who owns 25% of shares and above. Access to information and the frequency of updates are still under discussion;

- Do not use the shares to bearer;

- Solution of a nominee director’s question about the their liability to declare automatically in whose interests they are managing;

- The appointment of private persons as the only directors of companies.

Public discussion of the proposed measures will last until September 16, 2013.

Based on: www.gov.uk

Expert’s opinion

Before now in the UK Companies House there was no open information about shareholders (among the information which is available to third parties). This information can be found only by ordering of extended extract from the register. An important detail: when we speak about shareholders in this satiation we mean the beneficiary if the company. And although in practice this is often not the case, in many European countries shareholder equated to the beneficiary.

The question about publicly available beneficiary’s information has been already raised and namely on the part of the United Kingdom. But there is no support among global counterparts, while England has decided to implement the rule at home. For maximum transparency and openness, the government insists on the full information about ultimate owners, because now this information could not be obtained.

There is every reason to believe that the bill will be encouraged and accepted. Nevertheless the institute of nominee directors and shareholders has not been abolished, and thus the beneficiary’s information will not be available.

Irina Lomakina ( Director of Moscow office of “Honest&Bright” Company)