2018
On 1 September 2018, the duty to retain and gather data on the beneficial owners of private legal entities entered into force. The obligation originates from chapter 9 of the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing Prevention Act.
The following legal persons have the obligation to determine the beneficial owners: private limited company, public limited company, general partnership, limited partnership, commercial association, foundation, non-profit association and European company and European Economic Interest Grouping.
Who is a beneficial owner?
Beneficial owner is a natural person who, directly or indirectly owns the company or in another manner exercises control over it. Specific criteria for determining the beneficial owners in case of different types of legal entities and in different shareholding structures are provided by the law.
Which data of the actual beneficiary must be submitted to the Estonian Commercial Registry?
The following information about the ultimate beneficial owners must be submitted to the Estonian Commercial Registry:
- the person`s name, personal ID code and country of the identification code or the date and place of birth and the country of residence if there is no ID code; and
- information how the person exercises control.
When must the data be submitted?
The data must be submitted within 60 days of 1 September 2018, i.e. by 1 November 2018.
The pre-filled data of the beneficial owners can be updated and confirmed (e.g. the manners in which control is exercised can be added) and/or beneficial owners can be entered and added in the e-business register.
In the next stage, the company will confirm that the data about the beneficial owners is correct when submitting their annual report.
Legal entity to be established must submit the data of the beneficial owner with the application for entry in the Commercial Registry.
Representatives of the companies who do not have access to e-business register are able to submit the information to Commercial Registry via notarized application including the list of the beneficial owners and the information how the person exercises control.
Sanctions
Failure to submit the data of the beneficial owner or to inform about changes in the data or submitting of false data is punishable by a fine of up to 1,200 EUR in case of a natural person and up to 32,000 EUR in case of a legal entity. The sanctions can be imposed as of 1 January 2019, when the respective provisions will enter into force.
