The Fourth and Fifth Money Laundering Directives require Member States to maintain registers recording the beneficial owners of companies and trusts. When fully transposed, companies and trustees will be required to register information about their beneficial owners with the Companies Registration Office (the CRO’) (in the case of companies) and the Revenue Commissioners (the ‘RC’) (in the case of trusts).  A variety of complex statutory instruments are required to introduce these registers into Ireland.

Ultimately, the requirement to gather and register beneficial ownership information rests with the entity (the trust or the company) to whom a solicitor provides legal services. To simplify this complex subject, the Law Society has developed an interactive one-page Infographic which visualises the incremental process required to establish registers of beneficial ownership in Ireland.  As work progresses to establish the registers, the Law Society will update the Infographic to include hyperlinks to new resources. As of September 2019 the status is as follows:

Companies

The central/national register of beneficial owners of companies was established on 29 July 2019 and companies have until 22 November 2019 to comply (see Infographic Phase 2 for Companies).  While solicitors cannot incorporate, those wishing to learn more about the register, in terms of the advice they might provide client companies, will find helpful links to CRO resources and contact details in the Infographic.  The Society’s Business Law Committee has also made a submission to the CRO.  

Trusts

A central/national register of beneficial owners of trusts has not yet been established and trustees should, for the time being, hold this information on internal registers (see Infographic Phase 1 for Trusts). In due course, following the publication of a draft SI to introduce a central/national register of beneficial owners of trusts, it is anticipated that the Revenue Commissioners will produce information/FAQs similar to that available for the companies register of beneficial owners.

Submissions

Representations were made during the transposition consultation period including submissions in January 2019, October 2019 and April 2020.

• January 2019 - Recommendations on draft regulations entitled 'European Union (Anti-Money Laundering: Beneficial Ownership of Trusts Regulations 2019'

• October 2019 - Submission on access to register of beneficial ownership of trusts

• April 2020 - Submission on the register of beneficial ownership of trusts