Following a public consultation (see our previous flash), on May 25, 2022, the long-awaited decree of the Ministry of Economy and Finance relating to the constitution and supervision of the beneficial owner (“UBO”) register in Italy was published in the Official Gazette (the “Decree”).

The decree implements Legislative Decree 231/2007 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purposes of money laundering and terrorist financing (“AML Law”).

According to the decree, Italian companies with legal personality, private legal persons, trusts and trust-like institutions will be required to report information about their UBO to the Companies Registry for registration purposes.

The information to be declared must include, among others, the identification data of the UBO concerned and, in the case of companies, the criterion according to which the natural person or persons concerned have been identified as UBO. Additional information should be provided depending on the nature of the reporting entity concerned.

The information must be communicated within 60 days from the date of entry into force of the register which will occur when the relevant secondary measures are issued. Companies and private legal persons, which will be incorporated later, will be required to declare the information relating to the UBO within 30 days of registration in their respective registers. Trusts and trust-like institutions will instead be required to report UBO information within 30 days of their incorporation. Any modification of the data communicated must be communicated within 30 days. The reported data must be confirmed annually by the entity concerned.

Supervisory authorities, obliged entities under the AML Act and, in certain specific cases, other subjects may access the information contained in the register.

Entities subject to the AML Act accessing the register for the consultation of data and information on the UBO in the context of customer due diligence will be required to report without delay to the register of companies any discrepancy between the information on the UBO obtained during the consultation of the register and the information obtained in the context of customer due diligence.

Next steps

The UBO register is still operational and in the coming months the relevant secondary measures will be enacted. The decree published in the Official Gazette is available here (in Italian only).