Leveraging shareholder data for beneficial ownership transparency
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Summary
This working paper examines how shareholder information can be leveraged to strengthen beneficial ownership transparency and improve understanding corporate structures or networks. High-quality, centralised shareholder data can support beneficial ownership regimes by enabling verification; reducing compliance burdens and costs; and avoiding duplication of information. However, shareholding and beneficial ownership are often treated separately in legal and technical frameworks, despite their conceptual overlap. Drawing on two case studies in Estonia and Zambia, the paper compares structured shareholder and beneficial ownership data, exploring data overlap and alignment, interest types in beneficial ownership data, and domesticity of corporate networks.
