At the end of January, the Minister for Justice, together with the Luxembourg Business Register ("LBR"), presented a set of tools aimed at implementing the reform of the database of companies and associations as part of the fight against economic crime and with a view to increasing the credibility of the registers as official reference sources for authorities and economic actors.
The mechanisms for monitoring and controlling compliance with the data filed in the Trade and Companies Register and the Register of Beneficial Owners will be strengthened to ensure that the information always remains up to date and can be used optimally. For users, this means more reliable data and therefore a higher level of assurance when consulting the registers.
The LBR intends to encourage companies and associations to comply with their legal obligations in the long term. However, administrative penalties – on a progressive basis – may be applied in the event of persistent non-compliance (i.e. increased fees, automatic deregistration and, as a last resort, referral to the Public Prosecutor).
It will carry out automatic preliminary checks and manual a posteriori checks to verify that the information declared matches the documents submitted, to guarantee the accuracy, completeness and timeliness of the data as soon as it is entered in the registers.
The data filed will therefore now be subject to automated and regular monitoring throughout their life cycle.
Once identified, the missing, expired or questionable information will require special attention from the companies and associations concerned, failing which the penalties mechanism could be triggered.
We remain at your disposal should you have any questions or wish to discuss these developments further with our Corporate/M&A experts Gérard Maitrejean and Pawel Hermelinski.
