Beneficial Ownership Transparency: Canada Is Catching Up

Globally the push for greater transparency of beneficial ownership continues. The UK and the EU are in the lead. The UK adopted the publicly available register of persons exercising significant control of UK companies and certain partnerships, and is in the process of adopting a register of beneficial owners of UK real estate (available to the public) and is expanding the existing trust register (quasi-public availability). The EU is moving in a similar direction with beneficial owners of corporations in the 4th and 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directives, but EU members are slow to adopt a register that is available to the public.

Canada is catching up with new reporting for tax purposes of trust beneficial owners and is considering making corporate UBO registers publicly available.