The new Trans­paren­cy Reg­is­ter and Fi­nan­cial In­for­ma­tion Act (Trans­paren­zreg­is­ter- und Fi­nanz­in­for­ma­tion­s­ge­setz - TraF­inG)

The new Trans­paren­cy Reg­is­ter and Fi­nan­cial In­for­ma­tion Act (Trans­paren­zreg­is­ter- und Fi­nanz­in­for­ma­tion­s­ge­setz - TraF­inG)

As a re­sult of the Trans­paren­cy Reg­is­ter and Fi­nan­cial In­for­ma­tion Act (TraF­inG), that has­be­come ef­fec­tive on 01 Au­gust 2021, the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter is now de­vel­op­ing into a full reg­istry. The rea­son for the planned changes is the in­ter­con­nec­tion of all Eu­ro­pean trans­paren­cy reg­is­ters to com­bat mon­ey laun­der­ing prac­tices and ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing. As a re­sult, all com­pa­nies sub­ject to trans­paren­cy re­quire­ments in Ger­many will be re­quired to reg­is­ter as of 01 Au­gust 2021.

The de­ci­sive fac­tor here is the elim­i­na­tion of the no­ti­fi­ca­tion fic­tion, so that the le­gal en­ti­ties in Ger­many spec­i­fied in more de­tail in the Mon­ey Laun­der­ing Act (GwG) must make no­ti­fi­ca­tions to the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter, re­gard­less of whether the rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion is de­rived from the com­mer­cial reg­is­ter or oth­er pub­licly ac­ces­si­ble sources. List­ed com­pa­nies and their sub­sidiaries are also com­mit­ted­hav­ing to re­port in fu­ture. All le­gal en­ti­ties un­der pri­vate law (e.g. AG, GmbH and UG (haf­tungs­beschränkt)) and reg­is­tered part­ner­ships (e.g. OHG, KG, GmbH & Co. KG) are af­fect­ed. Civ­il law part­ner­ships (GbR) and sole pro­pri­etor­ships are not af­fect­ed.

The fol­low­ing tran­si­tion­al pe­ri­ods ap­ply for fu­ture re­port­ing to the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter re­quired un­der the Trans­paren­cy Reg­is­ter and Fi­nan­cial In­for­ma­tion Act (TraF­inG) (Sec­tion 59 (8) GwG n.F.),

• March 31, 2022 (AG, SE, KGaA)
• June 30, 2022 (UG, GmbH, co­op­er­a­tives, part­ner­ship com­pa­nies)
• De­cem­ber 31, 2022 (all oth­ers, e.g. OHG, KG, GmbH & Co. KG, foun­da­tions)

It should be not­ed that the tran­si­tion­al pe­ri­ods only ap­ply if no ben­e­fi­cial own­er had to be reg­is­tered based on the pre­vi­ous ap­plic­a­ble no­ti­fi­ca­tion fic­tion. If this has not been done for oth­er rea­sons, the no­ti­fi­ca­tion must be made with­out de­lay. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, hence­forth fi­nal penal­ty no­tices will be pub­lished on the web­site of the Fed­er­al Of­fice of Ad­min­is­tra­tion (Bun­desver­wal­tungsamt), which is re­spon­si­ble for the penal­ty pro­ceed­ings.

At­ten­tion must be paid tothe time Coro­na bridg­ing aid and ex­cep­tion­al eco­nom­ic aid (No­vem­ber, De­cem­ber aid) have been claimed. This is part­ly, be­cause the ap­pli­ca­tion must in­clude a de­c­la­ra­tion that the ac­tu­al own­er­ship struc­ture of the ap­pli­cants has been dis­closed by en­ter­ing the ben­e­fi­cial own­ers in the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter pur­suant to Sec­tion 20 (1) of the Ger­man Mon­ey Laun­der­ing Act (GwG). So far, no sep­a­rate en­try had to be made in the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter when the no­ti­fi­ca­tion fic­tion of Sec­tion 20 (2) Ger­man Mon­ey Laun­der­ing Act (GwG) came into ef­fect if proof of the ben­e­fi­cial own­ers from oth­er reg­is­ters (e.g. list of share­hold­ers from the com­mer­cial reg­is­ter) had been at­tached. Fur­ther­more, two points should be not­ed in this con­text:

1. For­eign com­pa­nies

When ap­ply­ing for the var­i­ous pro­grams to get help, sev­er­al as­sur­ances or self-de­c­la­ra­tions must be pro­vid­ed by the ap­pli­cant. These in­clude the fol­low­ing:

This means that in this case, for­eign com­pa­nies are sub­ject to reg­is­tra­tion un­less they have al­ready sub­mit­ted rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion to an­oth­er reg­istry of an EU mem­ber state.

2. date of reg­is­tra­tion

If theap­proval of­fice does not re­quest proof of the ac­tu­al own­er­ship struc­ture pri­or to the ap­pli­ca­tion be­ing sub­mit­ted, the en­try in the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter must bereg­is­tered by the time the fi­nal set­tle­ment is due at the lat­est. Since this may well oc­cur be­fore the ex­piry of the tran­si­tion pe­ri­ods list­ed above, we strong­ly ad­vise im­me­di­ate reg­is­tra­tion.

There is a need for ac­tion for all com­pa­nies sub­ject to trans­paren­cy re­quire­ments. De­pend­ing on the struc­ture of the com­pa­ny (e.g. mul­ti-mem­ber struc­ture, par­tic­i­pa­tion of for­eign com­pa­nies), re­port­ing the ben­e­fi­cial own­ers to the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter can be a chal­lenge. To avoid a fine or the re­claim­ing of ap­proved bridg­ing aid, we are hap­py to sup­port you in ver­i­fy­ing the ben­e­fi­cial own­er and the sub­se­quent no­ti­fi­ca­tion to the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter at the fol­low­ing costs:

• Ver­i­fi­ca­tion of ben­e­fi­cial own­er
• En­try in the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter
• Reg­u­lar up­date re­gard­ing the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter
• Each ad­di­tion­al change (per com­pa­ny) with a cost of EUR 250,- net / hour
• Au­dit of ben­e­fi­cial own­er
• En­try in the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter
• Reg­u­lar up­date re­gard­ing the trans­paren­cy reg­is­ter
• Each ad­di­tion­al change (per com­pa­ny) with a cost of EUR 250,- net / hour