There will be people who will want to use these findings to undermine the validity of this type of transparency in the first place (i.e. public registers of beneficial ownership). But this would be the wrong conclusion. The only reason we know anything about the weaknesses of the UK register is because it is available as open data.

And even despite the lack of checks on the data, the register has already had an important positive impact. Not only has it made it possible for people everywhere to know more about the real people behind the UK businesses they interact with (with information on beneficial owners being accessed over 0.5 million times a month), it has already made a tangible difference in the fight against money laundering and other crime - whether that’s through new investigative stories coming to light, an increase in collaboration between Companies House and law enforcement or the huge drop off in new Scottish Limited Partnerships being set up - a vehicle previously associated with major international money laundering scandals.

Once Companies House is afforded the powers to do its job, we also have thoughts on what the checks should look like. Coupled with a more proactive and risk-based approach to suspicious companies, we would expect to see ID checks, looking into proof of control (e.g. shareholder information), cross-checking with other datasets, and verifying the status of foreign companies listed as owners.

Continued foot dragging by Government will only risk UK companies being implicated in the next major money laundering scandal, and do nothing to address the UK's reputation as an enabler of global corruption. While the flaws of the company register are serious, the UK Government has every opportunity to fix these now.

Find out more – read our new report Getting the UK’s House in Order.



