Introduction
Following through on India's commitment to align its
regulatory framework with the recommendations of the Financial
Action Task Force, to check the misuse of multi-layered corporate
entities for money laundering and other illegal activities, the
Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA), vide the Companies (Amendment)
Act, 2017 (Amendment Act), amended the Companies Act, 2013 (Act)
with an intent to strengthen beneficial ownership disclosures.
Pursuant to the Amendment Act, for the first time, a definition
of 'beneficial interest' was introduced and also new
disclosure and filing requirements were specified for
'significant beneficial owners'. To give effect to the
filing requirements, the MCA notified the Companies (Significant
Beneficial Owners) Rules, 2018 (SBO Rules) that brought about a
paradigm shift under corporate law by prescribing detailed
requirements to identify the ultimate individual owners of a
company in order to disregard opaque and
