European council proposals on company information would lead to ‘business as usual’ in wake of Panama Papers, critics say

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Efforts to tackle tax abuse and financial crime are at risk of being weakened by new European council proposals that would restrict public access to key company information, civil society groups have warned.

Only those with a “legitimate interest” should be able to identify a beneficial, or true, owner of a company in a European Union member state, according to a new draft text on the EU anti-money-laundering directive.

Previous drafts have stipulated that beneficial ownership information should be made available to the public. The new text would allow individual countries to decide on their own definition of “legitimate interest”, potentially excluding the general public.

There has been growing pressure for EU member states to publish their own registers of company beneficial owners after the publication of the Panama Papers earlier this year revealed how companies in tax havens can facilitate crime and tax fraud. The UK began publishing beneficial ownership data in June.

Chris Taggart, of the financial transparency group OpenCorporates, warned that the weakened measures would constitute governments returning to “business as usual” less than a year after the Panama Papers.

“We have seen the results of disclosing beneficial ownership information privately on an honour system and it’s obvious that this hasn’t been good enough to fight corruption, tax evasion and other financial crimes,” Taggart said.



“The case for a public, open beneficial ownership register is clear: we cannot crack down on financial crime if no one is watching.”

Henri Makkonen, an advisor to the Financial Transparency Coalition, described the new text as “a pretty horrible compromise”, but said that strong support for greater transparency in the European parliament and European commission could result in stronger rules being adopted.

Earlier on Tuesday, 80 British MPs backed an amendment that would force the UK’s overseas territories, including the British Virgin Islands, to publish data about the beneficial owners of offshore companies.

