Some Important Points Regarding Beneficial Owner Identification Procedures

Press Statement

- The reason for issuing the beneficial owner decision is to protect the data of companies and establishments from exploitation or misuse by others, and to assist the State's supervisory bodies, financial institutions and designated non-financial businesses and professions in verifying, identifying and obtaining accurate data and information on the legal person conducting financial or commercial transactions, directly or indirectly.

- The Decision strengthens the implementation and fulfilment of the requirements of Law No. 106 of 2013 regarding Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing

- The beneficial owner data provided will be audited and verified in order to build and establish a complete, correct and reliable database for this purpose, and legal action will be taken if the data is incorrect.

- Compiling and establishing the database will strengthen anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing systems and contribute to the monitoring of suspicious practices.

- The competent authorities in the State, the relevant financial institutions and the designated non-financial businesses and professions will be granted the authority to query the database of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in order to achieve the objective of verifying the true beneficiary and who controls legal persons.

- The Decision helps implement and achieve the principle of transparency to assist in assessing the risks of misuse of legal persons for money laundering or terrorist financing, and to ensure that the competent authorities can obtain or access adequate, accurate and up-to-date information on the true beneficiary, which helps them take the necessary measures to prevent legal persons from exploiting this to carry out any suspicious transactions.