This guidance note provides guidance to solicitors when requests are received to provide a certification or confirmation (both referred to in this note as certification) of the beneficial ownership of a client (being an Irish registered company) to a third party from:

• in-house counsel in respect of their employer's (and therefore their client’s) beneficial owner(s) or in respect of an entity in the employer’s group;

• in-house counsel acting as company secretary; 

• private practice solicitor in respect of a client's beneficial owner(s); and

• solicitor firm owned company which is providing trust and company secretarial services in the form of acting as company secretary to the law firm's / solicitor's client.

This guidance note: 

• is provided as general information purposes only and is not intended to and does not constitute or comprise legal advice. The Law Society of Ireland will not be liable for loss or damage arising out of or in connection with your use of the guidance note.

• is not designed to assist solicitors complying with their own anti-money laundering obligations[1]; and 

• does not deal with certification of the beneficial ownership of a client which is not an Irish registered company.

Solicitors are also reminded: 

• to carefully consider in all of the circumstances and given the capacity within which the request for certification is made, whether it is appropriate to provide certification of beneficial ownership of a client entity;

• of their company client’s statutory obligation to provide beneficial ownership information to a designated person to satisfy a company’s own anti-money laundering obligations; and 

• that the risk relating to reliance by designated persons on third parties to satisfy their own anti-money laundering requirements remains with the designated person.

Next chapter: Introduction

[1] Solicitors can access guidance on their own statutory AML duties by visiting www.lawsociety.ie/aml