All Corporate and legal entities required to maintain a register of beneficial owners detailing all persons owning or controlling more than 25% of the shares or voting rights.
This information must be filed online to central register maintained by the Companies Registration Office. This requirement has not yet commenced and is due to be commenced in 2018. There will be a grace period to allow companies file this information.
A beneficial owner includes an individual:
- Owning or controlling, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the shares or voting rights in a company, or
- Who has the ability to exercise dominant influence or control over a company.
What Information must be contained on the Register of Beneficial Owners?
- the name, date of birth, nationality and residential addresses PPSN or passport number of each beneficial owner of it (the beneficial owner must be a natural person);
- a statement of the nature and extent of the interest held by each such beneficial owner;
- the date on which each natural person was entered into the register as a beneficial owner of it;
- the date on which each natural person who has ceased to be a beneficial owner of it ceased to be such an owner;
- if, having exhausted all possible means and provided there are no grounds for suspicion by the company, no natural persons are identified, or there is any doubt that the persons identified are the beneficial owners, there shall be entered in the register the names of the natural person(s) who hold the position of senior managing official(s) of the company (including their date of birth, nationality and residential addresses). In this case, a company shall keep records of the actions taken in order to identify the beneficial ownership of it.
This information is provided by the CRO for guidance only and is not a legal interpretation of the SI or the EU Directive. If in doubt a company should seek legal advice.
https://www.cro.ie/Registration/Beneficial-Ownership
Please Note:
Our CLS Insights aims to bring you practical information and news on Company Law and Company Secretarial. We cover the topics that matter to your business and give practical tips and also the benefit our experiences. Please remember this article is a guide and legal advice should always be obtained. If you have any queries please contact one of the team and we would be happy to help.
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