Anti-money laundering and transparency register – what will the new government change?

According to the coalition agreement, the future government wants to “resolutely combat” money laundering and financial crime. The coalition partners have announced that legal transactions by legal entities in excess of EUR 10,000 may no longer be carried out by the obligated parties if the beneficial owners cannot be identified. To date, prohibitions on contracting have been known in practice mainly in connection with the prohibition on notaries notarizing real estate transactions.

It is not yet clear what exactly is meant by “cannot be identified”. The intention stated in the coalition agreement, namely to close gaps in the transparency register, suggests that this should in any case refer to a missing entry in the transparency register.

Stricter rules also for companies entered in the transparency register?

It will be interesting to see how cases are treated in which an entry has been made in the transparency register but fictitious beneficial owners have been reported because insufficient information could be obtained to identify the actual beneficial owners. Companies are often dependent on information from their parent companies, which they do not always receive. Until now, companies have been able to comply with the obligations to register in the transparency register, which are subject to fines, by disclosing that it was not possible to conclusively identify the beneficial owners. So far, this has been a welcome solution for these companies. If they are also affected by the ban on concluding legal transactions in the future, these legal entities and in particular the parent companies will have to look for alternative solutions.

Companies that have not yet been able to identify their beneficial owners should therefore monitor further developments and continue to seek information from their parent companies as a precautionary measure.