Improving beneficial ownership transparency in Ukraine: Review and recommendations
Methodology
This scoping study is based on in-depth interviews with implementers of the companies register register that took place during a research trip to Kyiv in August 2017. This included interviews with key staff at the State Enterprise “National Information Systems” (NAIS), which is the administrator of the USR. The Ministry of Justice is the “holder” of the companies register, meaning it is responsible for governance and policy. We had the opportunity to meet with Deputy Minister of Justice for State Registration, Olena Sukmanova, and the Ministry’s Head of External Relations, Oksana Reiter. In addition, we had multiple conversations with staff at Transparency International Ukraine and ProZorro, a partnership between the public sector and civil society that aims to increase the transparency of public contracts.
In developing the findings and recommendations in this report, we relied on the accounts of NAIS staff on the process of collecting, verifying, validating and disseminating beneficial ownership information. We also examined the type of information being stored, and how this could be improved in the future, based on comparisons with international best practice procedures. Finally, we performed some searches using the database in order to assess its usability.