Registration of a EEIG in the Commercial Register
6. Beneficial owners
Beneficial owner (Patiesais labuma guvējs or PLG) is a natural person, the owner of a legal person or a person controlling the general company and at least a natural person who, in the form of direct or indirect participation, owns more than 25 per cent of the capital shares or voting shares of a legal person or who controls them directly or indirectly. The 25 per cent criterion, by analogy, for the purposes of clarifying the size of a qualifying holding, may also be applied to other legal entities, not only to capital companies.
The Beneficial owner of the European Economic Interest Group should indicate:
- name;
- surname;
- the personal identity number (if any - date of birth, month, year, number and date of issue of the identity document, country and authority which issued the document);
- nationality;
- the country of residence;
- way of exercising control over the European Economic Interest Group:
- through the status of the legal person (if the Beneficial owner is a member):
- as a member;
- as a separate person who controls (if the Beneficial owner controls the European Economic Interest Group indirectly):
- on the basis of a contract of authorisation;
- on the basis of ownership (for example, if the Beneficial owner is a member of the European Economic Interest Group, a legal person);
- through the legal arrangement as a founder;
- through the legal arrangement as a principal;
- through the legal arrangement as a manager;
- on the basis of the transaction relationship;
- another (free text field with the option of entering an undefined type);
- information on the person through whom the control is carried out (indicate if any of the methods referred to in paragraphs 6.1.2 or 6.1.9 in which control is exercised in the general company is indicated):
- the name, surname, personal identity number of the natural person (if the person does not have a personal identity number - date of birth, month and year);
- the name, registration number and legal address of the legal person (may also be a foreign legal person).
- through the status of the legal person (if the Beneficial owner is a member):
It should be noted that the threshold of more than 25%, if the shares belong to a natural person, is the minimum threshold from which the determination of the Beneficial owner is mandatory, i.e. the presence of a natural person's participation to that extent cannot be called upon that the Beneficial owner cannot be established or that the person concerned is not a Beneficial owner. Given that the 'more than 25%' threshold established by the European Economic Interest Group applies by analogy, the natural persons concerned should also be considered to be Beneficial owner in European economic interest groups with 2-3 members. In particular, if there are 2-3 members of the European Economic Interest Group, natural persons cannot be called upon to find that the Beneficial owner cannot be established or that the persons concerned are not the true beneficiary. An exception is possible if the natural person concerned is controlled by another person or there is another type of control (e.g. arrangements for the distribution of control) between members. In the light of this, in cases where members of the general company with 2-3 members are able to comply with the abovementioned definition of the Beneficial owner, it is not possible for only one of the members to exercise control in the general company through the status of the legal person as a member. In such situations, there should also be another form of control exercise to be indicated in the application for registration of the Beneficial owner, including information on the person through whom the control is being exercised.
It should be noted that it is not possible to provide an explanation of all situations, since each case is individual and the head of the European Economic Interest Group needs to know (to be clarified) whether a natural person has real control of the European Economic Interest Group.
Where the European Economic Interest Group has used all possible means of clarification and has concluded that it is not possible to identify any natural person, the Beneficial owner, as well as doubts that the full company has a Beneficial owner, it shall be confirmed in the application, stating the reasons.
The Enterprise Register shall have the right to request a documentary justification for the control carried out by the Beneficial owner, as well as a document confirming the relevance of the information identified by the Beneficial owner (a notarised copy of the identity document, a statement from the foreign population register or other documents comparable to those documents), and a document supporting a statement that the Beneficial owner cannot be ascertained!