Alsnog recht gedaan aan de privacy van de UBO: Openbare vorm UBO-registratie niet noodzakelijk en dus disproportioneel

On 22 November 2022, the European Court of Justice (Grand Chamber) ruled that the provision in the EU Directive requiring the public form of UBO registration is invalid. The purpose of UBO registration may serve a public interest - countering money laundering and terrorist financing through increased transparency - and may even justify serious infringements of the fundamental right to privacy, but according to the Court, public access to UBO data is neither proportionate to the objective pursued nor is it limited to what is strictly necessary to achieve that goal. The authors discuss what this ruling means for Dutch UBO registration.