3 days left to your UBO’s declaration and avoid heavy fines

UBO DELCARATION

Increase your company transparency.

The UAE government issued Cabinet Resolution 58, replacing Cabinet Resolution 34 on 28 August 2020. This resolution aims to regulate Ultimate Beneficial Owner Procedures in order to increase corporate transparency of the UAE registered entities.
The resolution requires all entities licenses in the UAE (unless exemptions apply) to prepare and fill an Ultimate Beneficial Owner register, Nominee Board Member information and Register of Partners or Shareholders.

Violating the UBO’s rules will lead you to AED 100,000 fines!

The UAE Ministry of Economy has launched the UBO campaign for established and new companies. Violators of the regulations will begin face fines from July.

This campaign touches on more than 500,000 non-financial businesses that need to provide the complete data on the ultimate beneficial owners.

“Money laundering and terrorism financing crimes are a major concern that plagues most of the world’s economies, especially today with the advent of modern digital technologies in the financial sector, trade and investment activities and doing business,” said Safeya Al Safi, Director of the Anti-Money Laundering Department at the Ministry of Economy.

Who are the UBOs?

As per Cabinet Resolution No. (58) of 2020, Beneficial Owner or Real Beneficiaries can be the following:

  • Natural Person who owns/controls the establishment definitively, through direct/indirect ownership shares of 25 % or more.
  • Or: someone who holds the right to vote by 25% or more or the right to appoint/dismiss the majority of the establishment’s managers or any other means by which he exercises ultimate control over the establishment.
  • In cases where UBO cannot be identified through the two conditions above, then a natural person who holds the position of Senior Management Official in the company may be deemed as the UBO.

On the other hand, there are entities which are exempted with this resolution. They are as follows:

  • the companies in financial free zones like Abu Dhabi Gold Markets and Dubai International Financial Centre, and
  • (b) the companies which are directly or indirectly owned or affiliated by the Federal or Emirate Government.

These procedures are taken seriously by the authorities to combating the money laundering and financing of terrorism and illegal organizations, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

This campaign will end in few days on 30 of June. Hereafter, immediately from 1 July 2021, the fines defined by the Cabinet Resolution 58 will start being distributed.

The fines will start from the issuance of written warnings to the imposition of fine up to AED 100,000 along with administrative fines and a possible suspension of the license for one year, etc.

How and where to register?

Before submitting the information, you need to identify the UBO of your company. After what you will gather all the data related to them and fill the UBO register. The resolution requires non-financial businesses to provide and maintain the following:

  • Register of Beneficial Owner
  • Nominee Board Member information
  • Register of Partners or Shareholders

The Register of Beneficial Owner contains updated information about a company’s UBO. These are the following data of the UBO you must enter in the register:

  • Full name, place and date of birth, and nationality
  • Residential address to which notices shall be sent.
  • ID card or passport number, issuing country, and the issue date and expiry date
  • The date and the basis on which the individual became the company’s UBO.
  • The date on which the individual stopped being the company’s UBO.

You can get all the information and all the data you need to provide in the Cabinet Resolution 58/2020’s guidelines. 

To help you comply with the UAE authorities, our cabinet helps you

  • Identify the UBO of your company
  • Prepare registers of the UBOs, Partners – Shareholders and Nominee Directors – Managers
  • Submit the information on the register.

For more details and assistance please contact us at support@merritt.group .