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Beneficial Owners - Company Germany
Are Beneficial Owners fully disclosed — down to the natural person behind holding structures?
The Transparency Register has no longer been publicly accessible since November 2022. In a landmark ruling on November 22, 2022, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) decided that unrestricted public access to beneficial ownership information in national transparency registers violates EU fundamental rights — specifically the right to privacy and the protection of personal data under the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.This means, you cannot simply look up the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of an German Company through a public register. Access is now restricted to parties who can demonstrate a legitimate interest, such as journalists, NGOs, or authorities investigating financial crime.
In practical terms, this has significant implications for your due diligence process:
First, you will need to rely on the company extract from the German Commercial Register, which discloses direct shareholders — but does not necessarily reveal the natural person behind multi-layered holding structures.
Second, to identify the true UBO, you will likely need to engage an German attorney or compliance specialist who can formally request access based on a demonstrated legitimate interest.
Third, if you are conducting an M&A transaction or a significant investment, the target company itself is legally obligated under German anti-money laundering law (FM-GwG) to disclose its beneficial owners to you as part of the transaction process.
Bottom line: Full UBO transparency is no longer self-service in Germany. For serious investment decisions, professional legal support on the ground is strongly recommended.
