Belgium Publishes Decree on Ultimate Beneficial Owner Register
After the EU’s fourth anti-money-laundering (AML) directive, (EU) 2015/849, was adopted on June 25, 2015, EU member states had a two-year time frame to comply with the directive, to introduce new “know your customer” (KYC) rules and rules to determine money-laundering risk, and to set up a national beneficial owner register by June 26, 2017.
Belgium transposed the legislation with the Act of September 18, 2017, on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing and the restriction on the use of cash (the AML law) (Belgian State Gazette, October 6, 2017). The AML law replaced the Act of January 11, 1993. Although the AML law introduced several changes to the Belgian AML regime — mainly concerning the introduction of the risk-based approach, whistle-blowing measures, and increased sanctions — it maintained the basic principles of the regime. A major change was the introduction of a register of beneficial owners for legal entities and trusts.
Belgium Publishes Decree on Ultimate Beneficial Owner Register, World Tax Daily, 6 September 2018, 2018 WTD 173-12
PDF belgium-publishes-decree-on-ultimate-beneficial-owner-register.pdf