Beneficial Ownership
Beneficial owners are the natural persons who directly or indirectly ultimately own, control or derive financial benefit from a company or commercial activity.
Beneficial Ownership is important for:
- Building trust and confidence in the integrity of the business environment for citizens, government, companies and finance providers
- Creating open and competitive economies
- Combatting corruption, conflicts of interest, money laundering and tax evasion
There is a global trend towards transparency of the beneficial owners of companies. As governments seek investment, they will want to meet the expectations of greater transparency, including of the beneficial owners of companies operating in their economies. Governments are in competition with each other to attract investment and countries that offer more transparency are likely to be more successful in doing so, especially in the new post-Covid environment.
There is no single global standard of beneficial ownership transparency.
BO6 offers a framework for implementing a robust beneficial ownership reporting regime.
