Resources
Companies and trusts
Registers of Beneficial Owners of Companies and Trusts
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.
Trust and company services Memorandum of Understanding
The Jan/Feb 2016 Law Society practice note launched the Department of Justice and Equality memorandum of understanding (MOU) about:
- trust and company legal services, and
- trust and company service providers (TCSPs).
The purpose of the MOU is to clarify the division of responsibilities regarding which competent authority is responsible for (a) trust and company legal services and (b) TCSPs. The MOU does not introduce any new regulatory obligations for solicitors or new monitoring obligations for the Law Society and does not amend the Law Society’s Guidance Notes for Solicitors on Anti-Money Laundering Obligations.
Solicitors can learn more about how the Law Society fulfils its obligations as a competent authority in Chapter 13 of the Guidance Notes and in the Law Society's statutory instrument, Solicitors (Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Regulations) 2016.
