A businessperson who wanted to correct his company's data has discovered an important flaw in the work of the Estonian commercial register. The ERR portal writes about it.
In December last year, Risto Mägi, a member of Brem Avarii's Management Board, asked the Tartu County Court how to change the actual data on the company's beneficiary history in the Estonian commercial register, as some data have been entered into the database incorrectly. In particular, the database contains the wrong date of the change of the beneficial owner of the company - instead of the real date, the day of making changes in the register was recorded.
In response to Mägi's application, the Tartu County Court replied that it could not edit the history of beneficiary changes. Unsatisfied with this response, Mägi tried to find out who in Estonia had the relevant authority.
«We have vast IT systems and an e-state – it cannot be the case that no one can change the incorrect history of actual beneficiary data... Shouldn't the purpose of a commercial register be that the data within it is accurate?», he wrote in his response to the Court.
Gerli Aasmäe, an employee of the registration department of the Tartu County Court, recommended Mägi to consult the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Justice, which he did.
In the Ministry of Justice Mägi was told that the start date of beneficial ownership in the register could theoretically be different from the date of the relevant decision, and redirected him to the Ministry of Finance for the rest of the questions.
The ERR portal, which is following the development of the situation, spoke to a representative of the Financial Information and Intelligence Policy Department of the Ministry of Finance. The latter explained to the journalists that it is easy to change the new data in the register, but there is a problem with correcting the history of beneficial ownership.
«This is a database's public digital archive, which reflects previously disclosed data... The aim is for what information was available via the database during previous periods to be identifiable. Therefore, this data cannot be changed later.», the adviser affirmed.
At the same time, he clarified that only up-to-date information has legal significance. At the same time, the authorities are now preparing a draft law that will add new options to the system of administration of the beneficiary register.
According to ERR, the Mägi situation is not the first problem with Estonia's beneficial ownership register management procedures. In particular, an unscrupulous person can register a company at someone else's address without producing documents, but the legal owner of the property will have to provide his digital signature to legally "evict" the uninvited guest.
However, the registry notes that providing false addresses to avoid legal liability makes no sense. If the registry sends a notice to the address indicated when registering the company, it is automatically considered to have been served.
