Provision of information on beneficiaries to the Register of Legal Entities. What is IT important to know?The start of a new year often brings new legislative changes or new opportunities to fulfill existing responsibilities. This year is no exception, as the obligation provided by the Law on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing of the Republic of Lithuania (hereinafter – PPTFP) to obtain, update and store accurate information about its beneficiaries, from 3rd January 2022, may be implemented by providing information to the subsystem of the Register of Legal Entities – the information system of beneficiaries of legal entities (hereinafter – JANGIS).
A beneficiary is a natural person who:
– owns more than 25% of the shares, contributions and/or votes of a legal person, or
– has other control over the legal person, such as the power to appoint or remove the head of the legal person, to take decisions of a strategic nature, or
– has other rights to control the legal person, for example, is the head of the company, chairman or member of the board or other collegial body.
According to the information of the Lithuanian Register of Legal Entities, the provision of data is carried out in the following stages:
1. From the 3rd January 2022, all legal entities (except investment funds) provide data when their beneficiaries are natural persons.
2. From the 1st May 2022, all legal entities (except investment funds) will start providing data on beneficiaries either natural persons or legal entities.
3. From 1st August 2022, the investment funds will also have to provide data.
The first stage of the data provision is relevant for enterprises whose all beneficiaries are exclusively natural persons. Data should be provided about each natural person (direct owner) holding 25% or more of the shares (or equity) in the enterprise.
If there are no persons holding more than 25% of the shares (or equity), the data shall be provided about the manager, the chairman (member) of the collegial management body, and other natural persons controlling the company who may make strategic decisions.
The second stage of the data provision is relevant for companies with both natural and legal controlling persons. In this case, data should be provided for each natural person (direct owner) holding 25% or more of the shares (or equity) in the enterprise. Data shall also be provided about indirect owners – the controlling company or several companies – holding 25% of the shares (or equity) in the company.
The third stage of the data provision is also relevant for investment funds.
The obligation to disclose data about the ultimate beneficiaries does not apply to legal entities whose sole participant is the state or a municipality.
When providing data to the JANGIS subsystem of the Register of Legal Entities, the following data of beneficiaries should always be disclosed:
– the name of the beneficiary
– birth date
– personal identification number
– the State which issued the identity document
– a place of residence
– ownership and scope of ownership (percentage of shares, percentage of voting rights) or other control rights (Chairman of the Board, Member of the Board, Chief Executive Officer, Senior Manager, position, percentage of transferred voting rights).
If the data changes, the company must notify the JANGIS representative no later than 10 days from the date of the data change.
Why is data provision necessary and what are the benefits?
1. The PPTFP Act imposes an obligation to provide such data. Failure to comply with this obligation may result in administrative liability and fines for non-compliance (from € 800 to € 1,500, for managers of legal entities from € 2,000 to € 3,500).
2. Legal persons who fail to comply with the notification obligation may be also included in the list of untrustworthy taxpayers for a period of one year if a fine of EUR 1 500 or more is imposed for the specific infringement.
3. Before providing services, and in certain cases, during the provision of services, financial institutions and other entities shall be obliged to verify the customer’s data on the legal entity and its final beneficiaries. If it is possible to check the data in the JANGIS subsystem, these procedures will likely be less time-consuming and will be performed more efficiently.
4. Enables better prevention and transparency of money laundering and terrorist financing.
Ways of submitting data to JANGIS
According to the information provided by the Register of Legal Entities, currently, the data is provided to JANGIS only in electronic form after logging in to the self-service system of the Center of Registers and the generated lists of beneficiaries are signed electronically with a qualified electronic signature.
Leinonen specialists are ready to answer any additional questions you may have and to assist you in the data submission process if required, please contact lithuania.legal@leinonen.eu
