Judicial authorities responsible for uncovering dirty money – such as tax authorities, law enforcement and financial intelligence services – should not be the only ones to have access to records. Foreign authorities use registries to track potential suspicious transactions around the world. Obliged entities – that is, banks and other financial institutions with a legal obligation to carry out due diligence on their customers – need access to this data to be able to carry out sufficient controls . Law-abiding investors and businessmen also need it to ensure they are not working with shady or corrupt partners. Journalists, civil society organizations and academics use registries for their reporting and research to identify illicit financial flows as well as understand risks and policy gaps. More broadly, members of the public can also support this effort. Yet only four countries have allowed or are considering allowing public access to their records.

THE United Kingdom is one of the countries where the register remains open to the public, which has allowed analysis by Transparency International UK of 146,948 limited liability companies (LLPs) formed between April 2001 and September 2021. Using register data, they found that more than one in ten limited liability companies formed during this period had characteristics identical to those used in serious financial crimes, such as corruption, embezzlement. fraud of public funds and sanctions.

The European Union, itself a member of the G20, has been a leader in this effort with the 5th EU Anti-Money Laundering Directive of 2018, in which it required all member states to open public access to registries. Unfortunately, the The European Court of Justice decided in November 2022
that public access constituted a violation of privacy and required countries to close it, while recognizing that journalists and civil society organizations fighting against money laundering have a legitimate interest. This was confirmed by the 6th anti-money laundering directive of 2024 that established journalists and civil society organizations combating money laundering and predicate offenses should have widespread access to beneficial ownership registers. Nevertheless, the decision remains a blow to transparency. Germany and the The Netherlands
blocked public access immediately after the decision, and more recently, France did it too. Under new EU rules, all will have to allow general access to records to people classified as having a legitimate interest.