The Department of Company Registration and Intellectual Property reminded that on March 31, 2024, the transitional period for filing information on the final beneficiaries of companies will expire.
From April 1, fines or criminal proceedings will be sent to those legal entities that fail to submit data on time.
The agency noted that the final version of the Register of Beneficial Owners of Companies and other legal entities (also known as the UOB register) is available from the end of October 2023.
The first "deadline" for submitting data on the ultimate beneficial owners of companies expired as early as July 31, 2022. However, on August 5 of the same year, the department announced that it was introducing a transitional period until September 30, 2023, during which companies that delayed in filing data would not be fined. Then it was extended for another 6 months.
The creation and launch of the electronic registry UBO was a private company, which won the state tender.
The money for the digital version of the register of ultimate beneficiaries was allocated from the EU funds within the framework of the program of recovery and development of Cyprus. Note that a beneficial owner or Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) is an individual who ultimately owns or controls a company.
The following ways of ownership or control can be distinguished:
- direct - the beneficial owner directly owns more than 25% (25% + 1 share) of the shares or has an interest in more than 25% ownership of the company;
- indirect - the beneficiary owns shares/interest in the company in the above amounts through a legal entity;
- mixed - in aggregate the direct and indirect ownership of the beneficiary is more than 25%.
In addition to an individual, the beneficiary of a company can be a trust, foundation and listed company. If a partnership is the beneficial owner of a company, the individuals behind the partnership controlling the company must be disclosed.
What details of the beneficial owners are entered in the Register?
Individuals:
- Full name, date of birth, citizenship, current place of residence;
- passport details, country of issue;
- the size of the share of ownership (direct or indirect);
- date of entry of data about the natural person in the Register as UBO;
- the date on which the individual's details were amended or the date on which the individual ceased to be the company's UBO.
Trusts and foundations:
- name, registration number (does not apply to trusts outside Cyprus), country of jurisdiction;
- legal address (not applicable to trusts);
- nature and amount of the beneficial interest;
- the date of entry of the legal entity in the Register as a UBO;
- the date of amendment of the legal entity or the date on which the legal entity ceased to be a UBO of the company.
Liability for failure to provide the information is a fine of €200 and an additional €100 for each day of delay (the maximum fine may reach €20,000). If the company, after receiving the notification, fails to provide information or violates the established deadlines for entering information, or knowingly enters false information into the Register, the company and its officials may be held criminally liable (imprisonment up to 1 year with a fine of up to 100 thousand euros or without a fine).
It should be mentioned that initially only competent and law enforcement authorities such as MOKAS (Money Laundering Unit), the Cyprus Police, the Central Bank had access to the Registry. This right was then granted to individuals as well, by submitting an application to the department and paying a fee of €3.5. However, later the European Court of Justice issued a ruling in the consolidated cases C-37/20 and C-601/20, according to which the access of the general public to the information included in the register of ultimate beneficial owners was suspended. The Court reasoned that such access constituted a serious interference with the basic right to privacy and violated personal data protection practices.