What the new Register of Beneficial Owners of business entities brings?
The new Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act establishes a register of beneficial owners of companies to be established by the end of 2017 and introduces new thresholds for reportable cash transactions.
The new Register of Beneficial Owners (RBO) of companies must be established by the Agency of the Republic of Slovenia for Public Legal Records and Related Services (AJPES) by November 2017. Business entities (except for sole proprietors and single-person LLC) will have to enter data into this register by January 2018, namely details regarding their actual owners (and the related amendments). Entities established from November 2017 onwards will have to enter such data within eight days of registration of the business entity in the Slovenian Business Register. Any subsequent changes to the actual owners registered in the register will need to be entered into RBO within eight days of the change occurring.
The new Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Act (PMLTFA-1) defines actual owners of business entities, namely, every (i) natural person who is (in) direct holder of a business entity and is involved in the management or is an equity participant or has a controlling position in the management of funds of such business entity, and every (ii) natural person who indirectly provides the business entity with resources and based on such acts has the right to control, guide or otherwise substantially interfere with decisions made by the management regarding financial and operating decisions.
Furthermore, PMLTFA-1 considers as the actual owner of a business entity, which does not have the possibility of participation in the management based on business shares, stocks or participation interests (for example associations, institutes, political parties, trade unions, religious communities), every natural person who represents such entity.
In addition to the above-mentioned changes, PMLTFA-1 introduces new thresholds for cash transactions subject to reporting to Office of the Republic of Slovenia for Money Laundering Prevention (OMLP). The threshold has been lowered from EUR 30,000 to EUR 15,000. The OMLP must be informed as soon as a transaction has been completed, but no later than three working days after a transaction has been completed. This rule applies to all transactions carrying an increased risk of money laundering or terrorist financing, and transactions associated with countries on the black list i.e. the list of high-risk third countries.
This year’s first issue of Legal BUZZ starts off with an insight into the particularities of the Slovenian enforcement proceeding system which doesn’t always guarantee the creditor a success with the enforcement on a real estate. We further present the decision of the Employment Tribunal of Great Britain, which could bring changes in the treatment of self-employed individuals providing a taxi service, and continue with an overview of the proposed changes of the EU copyright law. We conclude this month’s issue with news on the establishment of the register of beneficial owners of companies.
