Disclosure of beneficial owners of legal persons: current problems and possible solutions

Beneficial ownership disclosure is an important tool to combat money laundering, terrorist financing, corruption and other crimes. However, in some jurisdictions, the requirements for transparency of the entities ownership structure are reduced. Therefore, it is difficult to identify who really controls the company. On the other hand, high transparency makes companies vulnerable to sanctions. The article deals with the problem of offshore jurisdictions in the context of identifying beneficiaries, as well as various approaches to its solution: the creation of unified databases of company owners, LEI identifiers and automatic exchange of tax information.