FBN The EU Court of Justice declared invalid the free public access to the registers of the beneficial owners of companies
In a letter to the presidents and directors of the national member organizations of European Family Businesses (EFB), the general secretary of the European association Jesus Casado Navarro-Rubio gladly announced that recently "EFB has won a very important battle on the protection of the privacy rights of all business owners in Europe: The EU Court of Justice has declared general public access to the UBO registers invalid."
Mr. Navarro-Rubio informed that on November 22 of this year the Court of Justice of the European Union provided a judgement that declares invalid the Anti-money-laundering directive provision whereby the information on the beneficial ownership of companies incorporated within the territory of the Member States is accessible in all cases to any member of the general public.
They argued that the interference with the rights guaranteed by the Charter entailed by that measure is neither limited to what is strictly necessary nor proportionate to the objective pursued. According to the Court, the general public’s access to information on beneficial ownership constitutes a serious interference with the fundamental rights to respect for private life and to the protection of personal data, enshrined in Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter, respectively. Indeed, the information disclosed enables a potentially unlimited number of persons to find out about the material and financial situation of a beneficial owner. Furthermore, the potential consequences for the data subjects resulting from possible abuse of their personal data are exacerbated by the fact that, once the data has been made available to the general public, it can not only be freely consulted, but also retained and disseminated. The court holds that the interference entailed by that measure is neither limited to what is strictly necessary nor proportionate to the objective pursued.
The general secretary Navarro-Rubio recalls that in the last five years European Family Businesses has been part of an active lobbying action calling for the protection of the data of beneficial owners found in these registers. We issued a position paper in 2016 on the Beneficial Ownership Registers in which we stipulated the importance to finding a balance between transparency, privacy, and security. EFB has also written letters to the rapporteurs of the Anti-money-laundering files to establish communication on the need to protect the right of privacy of business owners.
"It is important to note that it is for the national court to dispose of the case in accordance with the Court’s decision, which is similarly binding on other national courts or tribunals before which a similar issue is raised.", points out in his letter Jesus Casado Navarro-Rubio.