Register of true company owners to arrive by January 2019 – Records to list all owners of at least a 25% stake

According to the Draft Law on the Register of True Company Owners, there has to be a name behind every company cooperative, foreign office, fund, foundation and institution, Novosti reports.

As the newspaper reports, the register of people who are true owners of at least 25% of the company will be formed by the end of January 2019. The goal of having records of all citizens behind companies is to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

The Government of Serbia recently adopted this Draft Law. Once it comes into effect, which should take place eight days after the adoption, the companies will have 30 days to define who their real owner is.

As the newspaper adds, these data will be sent to the Business Registers Agency, which obliges to establish the register by the end of January 2019.

According to the data of the Business Registers Agency from March 2018, 172,000 registered subjects will need to be listed there, among them the 28,168 companies whose owners or co-owners are foreign legal and natural persons.

As things stand, the register of true owner will not be open for public view, Novosti writes.

– Information about the true owners needs to be available to the organs in charge and financial intelligence officers without any limitations and without warning the legal person – says the explanation of the Draft Law. – They need to be available to submitting entities within due diligence, as well as to all persons or organizations that can prove a legal interest. They need to be provided with access to information about the true owners, which includes at least the name, the month and the year of birth, nationality, country of residence and the stake in the company.

The main goal of the law is to upgrade the current system of detecting and preventing money laundering and financing of terrorism, the newspaper notes.

According to the competent institutions, the current mechanism for the exchange of information has been proven to be insufficiently efficient, Novosti writes. At the moment, the biggest problems relate to the speed of obtaining data and their validity.

Agencija za privredne registre Beograd

Vlada Republike Srbije

Business Registers Agency

Government of Serbia

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