Central Register of Beneficial Ownership Of Companies and Industrial & Provident Societies (RBO)

 

A Statutory Instrument, No 110 of 2019, to establish a Central Register of Beneficial Ownership of Companies and Industrial and Provident Societies (RBO) was recently signed into law by the Minister for Finance. 

This legislation provides for the appointment of a Registrar of Beneficial Ownership of Companies and Industrial & Provident Societies. The intention is that this function will be given to the Registrar of Companies. 

Statutory Instrument No 560/2016, which required all corporate and legal entities to hold adequate, accurate and current information on their beneficial owner(s) in their internal register, has been revoked and replaced with immediate effect by SI 110 of 2019. 

Part 3 of the SI, which relates to the establishment of the central register, will come into operation on 22nd June 2019. 

In accordance with the SI, the RBO will begin to accept on-line filings from 22 June 2019, after which there will be five months for companies and I&Ps to file their RBO data without being in breach of their statutory duty to file. 

The RBO will write to each company and Industrial & Provident Society (I&P) about their filing obligations in the coming weeks. Please click here to the CRO website for more details.