The European Union Regulations 2016 were published by the Department of Finance on November 15th 2016.  These regulations derive from the EU’s Fourth Ant-Money Laundering Directive (AMLD4).  Its principal aim is to ensure that individuals with significant control in a relevant entity can be identified for the purposes of customer due diligence to combat terrorist financing and money laundering.

The Register of Beneficial Ownership or RBO is the central location of statutory information required to be held by relevant entities in respect of the natural person who are the beneficial owners or controllers of the company.

It is important to note if a relevant entity does not file with the RBO, it may be guilty of an offence and be liable on summary conviction to a Class A fine of up to €5,000 and on conviction on indictment to a fine of up to €500,000.

A ‘beneficial owner’ under the regulations is a natural person who directly or indirectly owns or controls over 25% of the share capital or voting rights or control by any other means e.g. CLG’s do not have any shareholders, in this case the Director or Senior Managing official may have control by other means.

  • Companies formed and registered under the Companies Act 2014 or an existing company within the meaning of that Act
  • Industrial and provident societies registered under the Industrial and Provident Societies Acts 1893 to 2018.

The register of beneficial ownership must be filed with the RBO by an entity within 6 months of the date of incorporation of that entity and they are then required to notify any changes of beneficial ownership to the RBO within 14 days of the change to the entity’s internal beneficial ownership register.  This includes a change of name or address of an exiting beneficial owner and the removal or appointment of a beneficial owner.

The register of beneficial ownership must contain the below details in respect of each beneficial owner of the entity:

  • Name, nationality, date of birth and PPSN
  • Statement of nature & extent of the interest held
  • Date of entry as a beneficial owner into the register
  • Date of entry ceasing to be a beneficial owner
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