Public V Private UBO Trust Registers - The EU Decides

On 15th December 2017, tri-party discussions between the EU Council, the European Parliament and the European Commission reached a provisional agreement to incorporate stricter measures into the EU Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (4AMLD) to increase transparency. Some of the fundamental changes to the 4AMLD relate to beneficial ownership registers as follows:

1. Registers for legal entities, such as companies, will be public.

2. Access to registers of trusts will be accessible without any restrictions to competent authorities, financial intelligence units, the professional sectors subject to anti-money laundering rules (e.g. banks, lawyers etc) and will be accessible to other persons who can demonstrate a "legitimate interest". Where a trust is a beneficial owner of a company, access to this information can be requested by a written request.