The provisions of the AML IV directive seemed to herald a revolution in the anonymity of business ownership. The widespread introduction of the obligation to disclose beneficial owners in companies, the obligation to create beneficial owner registers in individual countries seemed to introduce a non-exceptional obligation to disclose ownership in business. A property that, in the end, always has a first and last name.
However, it seems that the intentionally moralistic EU legislator has failed. The solutions of the directive have in fact been boycotted, especially in countries such as the Netherlands, where business anonymity is still an important value and is not necessarily associated, for example with us, with fraud and crime.
The boycott relied primarily on the option provided by the directive as well as national legislations of reporting as UBOs- members of the management boards of companies in a situation where it is not possible to identify the real beneficial owner.
The question of what, for whom and for what reason has become a key dilemma on the road to open ownership in European business.
