Τhe Council of Ministers of Cyprus appointed the Registrar of Companies as the Responsible Authority for maintenance and control of the Registry of Ultimate Beneficiary Owners (UBOs) and other Legal Entities

Introduction

As part of the practical implementation of the transposition into national law of the Fourth European Directive (EU) 2015/849 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2015 on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing, which was introduced in Cyprus with legislation in April 2018

Detailed discussion

The Council of Ministers took the following decisions during the meeting that was held on 16 December 2020:
•appoint the Registrar of Companies and Official Recipient of the Ministry of Energy, Trade and Industry, as the competent authority for the maintenance of the central Register of Real Beneficiary companies and other legal entities, and
•authorize him to collect information about the real beneficiaries of companies and other legal entities through the system intermediate solution that has been developed.

The Registrar of Companies has announced that the start date of data collection for companies is set for the 18 January 2021. Between 18 January 2021 and 19 July 2021, companies must register into the system that has been developed the information concerning their real beneficiaries. This system is developed as an intermediate solution and access to the system will be possible only for the competent authorities, upon request to the Registrar of Companies.

The information collected will be transferred to the final system solution to be developed in the second half of 2021 and access to it (which will include the public at large) will be based on the provisions of the 5th European Directive, concerning the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing. This Directive has not yet been introduced into the Cypriot legislation.