Nov 29, 2022
Cyprus suspends public access to the UBO Register
The Department of Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property of the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) has announced that, following the judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) in the joined cases C-37/20 and C-601/20[1] on 22nd November 2022 on the access to information and the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering or terrorist financing, access to the Cyprus’ Beneficial Ownership Register (BO Register) is suspended for the general public, as of the 23rd of November 2022.
According to the above-mentioned judgement of the CJEU, Article 1, point 15(c) of 5th EU AML Directive 2018/843, which provides for access to the information on the beneficial ownership of legal entities to any member of the general public, is invalid as it constitutes a serious interference with the fundamental rights of respect for private life and to the protection of personal data, enshrined in Articles 7 and 8 respectively, of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (The Charter).
The relevant information to the competent and supervisory authorities and the Unit as referred in article 12 of Directive R.A.A. 112/2021 and amending Directive R.A.A. 116/2022, will continue to be provided with the applicable procedure, as well as provided to the obliged entities, with the applicable procedure by submitting additionally a solemn declaration[2] confirming that the information on the beneficial owners is requested within the context of performing customer due diligence. The obligation of legal entities in Cyprus to submit and update their beneficial owners’ information is not affected and remains valid.
For more information, please contact us on [email protected]
[1] Luxembourg Business Registers (C-37/20) and Sovim (C-601/20)
[2] Solemn declaration must be submitted by obliged entities, accompanying the application for access to the BO Register and the issuance of the BO Report, and can be obtained on the official website of the RoC.
