EU ruling makes search for oligarch assets more difficult

Brussels, Dusseldorf They are considered indispensable in the fight against money laundering and corruption: transparency registers in every European country provide information about who owns a company. They help investigative authorities, journalists and non-governmental organizations to uncover corporate networks and the economic interests of individuals. They also play an important role in the search for the assets of sanctioned Russian oligarchs in Europe.

However, since a ruling by the European Court of Justice two weeks ago, these databases are no longer accessible everywhere. The Luxembourg judges had declared the EU Money Laundering Directive, which prescribes the registers, to be partially illegal.

In doing so, they agreed with an affected Luxembourg entrepreneur who saw his safety endangered by the publicly available information about himself.

The decision seems outdated. While tax havens around the world feel compelled to be more transparent and even the UK is about to introduce a transparency register with identity checks, the EU seems to be taking a step in the opposite direction.