BCL partner, John Binns writes for Law360 discussing the EU Beneficial Owners’ Privacy Ruling and its conflicts with UK law.

Below is a short extract from his article*. To read the article in full please visit the Law360 website here:

Two of the EU’s flagship agendas collided in November in a ruling by the Court of Justice of the EU in joined cases C-37/20, which struck down a requirement of the fifth Money Laundering Directive for registers of corporates’ beneficial owners to be available to the public in order to deter money laundering, as being inconsistent with Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU.

Member states now face having to restrict access to law enforcement and others who can show a legitimate interest in the information, potentially including campaign groups and journalists. But what will be the reaction in the U.K.?

The right to privacy is enshrined in Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and hence in U.K. law by the Human Rights Act 1998, but it is fair to say that the EU has gone considerably further than that: While Article 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights roughly equates to Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights focuses on the protection of personal data, which of course was built upon considerably by the ubiquitous General Data Protection Regulation.

*This article was first published by Law360 on 21 December 2022.