Example paper forms for collecting beneficial ownership data
Introduction
This document provides example forms to guide officials tasked with developing paper forms to collect beneficial ownership information. It refers to these officials as ‘implementers’. Open Ownership recommends that data is collected electronically, but we have produced these example forms to guide paper based data collection in situations where it is to be used.
Form 1: Information about the declaring Entity
Form 2: Information about a Beneficial Owner and their interests
Form 3: Declaration of shares or interest held indirectly through a legal entity
Form 4: Declaration of shares or interest held indirectly through a natural person
Form 5: Reasons for not specifying any Beneficial Owners
A submission will, as a minimum, consist of Form 1, plus one or more of Form 2, which should be completed for each of the declaring entity’s Beneficial Owners. Forms 3, 4 and 5 provide examples to guide collection of additional information that may be specified in disclosure requirements.
These example forms are suitable for guiding form development for a national company register or a sector specific register implemented as part of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) Standard. The forms cover beneficial ownership information and are not intended to capture other details required for a company or sector specific register.
How to use these forms
Implementers should use these forms to understand the information fields that Open Ownership recommends are collected, and Open Ownership’s guidance on how best to collect this information on paper forms. If all fields in the example forms are used, then the information collected will be compliant with the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard (BODS) v0.1.
This template should be adapted to fit the intended purpose and policy context. Adaptations may be necessary to match local legislation and conventions for recording fields such as date and address, as well as to cater for the different situations in which companies are required to submit beneficial ownership information. In the guidance notes alongside the forms, we highlight areas that implementers may wish to adapt, along with some considerations when doing so.
Please contact our Helpdesk ([email protected]) if you would like further guidance.