Beneficial Ownership 


Article 30(1) of the EU’s Fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive (4AMLD) requires all EU Member States to put into national law provisions requiring corporate and legal entities to obtain and hold adequate, accurate and current information on their beneficial owner(s) in their own internal beneficial ownership register.
Article 30(3) of 4AMLD requires that the information referred to above be held in a central register in each Member State. A Statutory Instrument, No 110 of 2019, to establish a Central Register of Beneficial Ownership of Companies and Industrial and Provident Societies (RBO) was signed into law (April 2019) by the Minister for Finance. A link to SI 110/2019 is provided here: http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2019/si/110/made/en/pdf.

This legislation provides for the appointment of a Registrar of Beneficial Ownership of Companies and Industrial & Provident Societies. Statutory Instrument No 560/2016, which required all corporate and legal entities to hold adequate, accurate and current information on their beneficial owner(s) in their internal register, has been revoked and replaced by SI 110 of 2019 with immediate effect. Filing of beneficial ownership data can only be made on-line through a portal on the RBO website at www.rbo.gov.ie. There are no paper forms and no filing fees involved. 

RBO Website homepage
  
The RBO website is designed to give companies and societies as much information as possible to assist you in meeting your beneficial ownership filing requirements.  There is a comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) on this website which will help guide you through your beneficial ownership filing requirements. The information provided in the FAQs does not constitute legal advice and, if in doubt, companies/societies should obtain their own legal advice.

UPDATE DECEMBER 2019: REGISTER OF BENEFICIAL OWNERSHIP (RBO)

The number of companies which had registered their beneficial ownership details with the RBO at the end of November 2019 was 160,000 or 69.4% of the total, and the number of industrial and provident societies which had registered was 450 (47%).   The Registrar would like to thank those companies and societies who registered their beneficial ownership details with the RBO before the filing deadline.

As over 150,000 submissions were received in recent weeks, there is a significant number of submissions still being processed.  If you company/society filed a submission and

(a) you are awaiting an e-mail to say whether your submission has been registered or rejected, or
(b) a data subject is awaiting receipt of a rejection letter, or
(c) you have filed a BEN2 and are awaiting an RBO number,

please be aware that it may take a number of weeks to process these submissions and the Registrar would appreciate your patience as the RBO Team work through these backlogs.

If your company filed a submission which was rejected by the RBO, please consult FAQ No 14 on the RBO website.

Please note that where a submission is rejected, due to data protection regulations, the RBO can only correspond with the owner of the personal data (ie the beneficial owner). In that case, the relevant beneficial owner will be written to by the RBO as soon as possible after the rejection occurs. If you filed or attempted to file with the RBO before the filing deadline, this has been recorded on the RBO and noted by the Registrar. 
 

THE RBO IS STILL OPEN TO ACCEPT FILINGS

The Register of Beneficial Ownership (RBO) remains open to accept filings from companies and societies which have not yet filed their beneficial ownership details.

If a relevant entity does not file with the RBO, it may be guilty of an offence and be liable on summary conviction to a Class A fine of up to €5,000 and on conviction on indictment to a fine of up to €500,000.  Companies and societies which have not already filed with the RBO are advised to do so as a matter of urgency in order to avoid prosecution.  Filing must be done online at www.rbo.gov.ie and there are no paper forms or filing fees.

Before making a submission for a beneficial owner, the presenter should ensure that they are using the same First Name, Last Name, PPSN and Date of Birth that are registered with the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection (DEASP) for that person.

For more information and FAQs, visit www.rbo.gov.ie.