Since 2013 in the Russian legal area came the concept of “beneficial owner”. This concept means the real owners of more than 25% of the business that could own the company through a number of other companies or can influence them, while the company leads by nominees. Loophole in the law allowed them to optimize taxation and to carry out illegal activities.
The government has attempted to compel the appearance of the true owners. So, on December 21, 2016 amendments to the Law № 115-FZ (On countering the legalization (laundering) of incomes…) were adopted, on 17 January 2017 the Federal service for financial monitoring (Rosfinmonitoring) explained the requirements of the act and told how to disclose information on beneficial owners. Such data must be published not less often than 1 time per year, it should be kept for at least 5 years and it must be given upon the request to Federal financial monitoring service. In the case of violations, the company will pay 100’000-500’000 rubles of fine.
The company Rodl & Partners in this regard, recommends companies, firstly, to include in the statutes provisions for obtaining such information about the founders and participants, and, second, to determine the order of work with it (update, storage and etc.).
Sources:
