Hector Sbert

Tag: UBO

  • Spain’s Equity Interest Reform: A Quiet Revolution for Asset Tracing?

    Spain is rarely the first jurisdiction that comes to mind when discussing corporate ownership transparency. Yet a proposed reform currently making its way through the Spanish legislative process may produce results that are more relevant to international asset recovery practitioners than many comparable initiatives in other jurisdictions. The draft Ley de Integridad Pública (Law on Public Integrity)…

  • The Transparency Debate: Corporate Secrecy vs. Corporate Publicity

    In recent years, the global conversation about corporate secrecy has intensified, driven by data leaks like the Panama Papers and ongoing efforts to expose financial misconduct. At the heart of this debate lies the question: Should information about corporate ownership and finances be made public, or is privacy a fundamental right that needs protection? Advocates…

  • Journalists will be allowed to “stick their noses” into UBO registers. Right or wrong?

    The debate around UBO registers drags on. As anticipated, Spain just launched its new UBO register (“UBOR”), adapted to the CJEU’s ruling of November 22, 2022. As is well known, such ruling declared that allowing access to UBORs to the general public in all cases was contrary to the right to privacy and to the…

  • Spain- New regulation on the access and use of the UBO Register

    This post is dedicated to my good friend and ICC FraudNet fellow member, Martin Kenney, “the oracle of the BVI”. Martin had long proclaimed that unrestricted access to beneficial ownership registries was contrary to the right to privacy and would have a counterproductive effect in terms of asset tracing and recovery. As is well known,…