{"id":36892,"date":"2022-06-13T15:48:42","date_gmt":"2022-06-13T13:48:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/?p=36892"},"modified":"2022-06-13T16:01:06","modified_gmt":"2022-06-13T14:01:06","slug":"act-now-eu-company-ownership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.access-info.org\/es\/2022-06-13\/act-now-eu-company-ownership\/","title":{"rendered":"Act Now! Have your say on EU company ownership transparency – Follow our guidance on how to participate in the public consultation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Madrid, 13 June 2022 \u2013 <\/strong><\/em> We are urging civil society organisations, journalists and citizens across Europe to participate in the European Commission\u2019s consultation on whether or not company registers should be open.<\/p>\n

The consultation is open until Tuesday 21 June 2022 (midnight Brussels time).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What is this about?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The consultation is on the Open Data Directive, adopted in 2019, which promised to open up company and company ownership data, including the names of the legal and beneficial owners. This information is currently available to all who have the means to pay for the data, with costs ranging up to \u20ac11 per record.<\/p>\n

We are simply asking the Commission to require EU Member States to make this data available for free so that all have equal access to it.<\/p>\n

Why is this a concern?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Commission is now planning to open up company data, but with no names of legal owners or beneficial owners, clearly going back on what the European Parliament and the Council agreed in 2019 when they included \u201cCompanies and Company Ownership\u201d in the list of high value datasets to be made public under the Open Data Directive.<\/p>\n

In spite of this promise, the European Commission is now proposing \u2013 via a much-delayed \u201cImplementing Regulation\u201d<\/a> \u2013 that only the most basic company information will have to be public in EU Member States. Absolutely no data on the company ownership or legal representatives will be published for free.<\/p>\n

The Commission has given no clear explanation for why there is this backtracking, but we understand that there is resistance from some medium and larger businesses to have their full company structures transparent, and from some Member States which are more concerned with making money from selling data in their company registers than providing a trusted and transparent business environment.<\/p>\n

This is counterproductive when open company registers have multiple benefits:<\/p>\n