Who are the real beneficiaries of your business? - Until when do you have to declare them?

The Curator of Companies and Intellectual Property of the Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry, conducts an information campaign

b base information campaign, business

The Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property Department of the Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry, conducts an information campaign inviting all companies or other legal entities registered in the Registrar of Companies, to proceed with the registration of the details of real beneficiaries in the Non-registered which has been set and which expires on 12 March 2022.

In addition to the information campaign currently running in the media, the Registrar of Companies and Intellectual Property has sent, since last November, a letter to all companies or other legal entities that are required to register the details of real beneficiaries in the Register, with which are informed in detail about the procedure they have to follow and, in general, about their obligations under the legislation. A series of workshops and meetings have also been held to inform the business world about the Register of Real Beneficiaries.

The Register of Real Beneficiaries is an important tool offered by the European Union to the Member States and aims at transparency and the prevention and control of the use of companies for money laundering and terrorist financing.

A beneficial owner is any natural person who actually owns or actually controls a legal entity, or the natural person on whose behalf a legal entity transacts or operates. As far as legal entities are concerned, the real beneficiary is:

  • The natural person who has the final ownership or final control of the legal person, directly or indirectly in a sufficient percentage of the shares or voting rights or the ownership of that legal person, inter alia, through shares in the bearer or through control with instruments other than a listed company in a regulated market.
    (a) An indication of direct ownership is a 25% share plus 1 share or ownership of more than 25% in the customer owned by a natural person, and
    (b) an indication of indirect ownership constitutes a 25% share plus a 1 share or ownership of more than 25% in the customer held by a legal entity, which is under the control of a natural person or persons or by several legal entities under control of the same natural person or persons.
  • The natural person who holds the position of senior manager in case there is a doubt that the person identified is the real beneficiary.

The process of submitting the data of real beneficiaries to the Register is done either by creating a profile of the company itself or the cooperation at the government portal "Ariadni", and identifying him / her with a physical presence at the KEP, KEPO and Company Registrar or at its District Offices Ministry of Energy, or through the certified profile of the natural person in "Ariadne", for the company / cooperative in which he / she is appointed.

All information about the Register of Real Beneficiaries on the website of the Companies Sector: www.companies.gov.cy

Here you can see the video that is shown as part of the information campaign: