Beneficial Ownership Transparency for Companies Listed on the Stock Exchange

Abstract

Many beneficial ownership registration frameworks fail to obtain beneficial ownership information from listed companies for two main reasons. Either high thresholds in the definition (based on percentage of ownership or voting rights) prevent the identifying of any beneficial owners, or listed companies are directly exempted from registering beneficial owners because they supposedly already disclose ownership information to the stock exchange or securities regulator. However, this brief explains why disclosures required by securities laws fall short of registering and disclosing beneficial owners. They have different goals and definitions. Thus, listed companies should not be exempted from beneficial ownership registration, and appropriate thresholds should apply to the beneficial ownership definition of listed companies so that all relevant people (investors) are registered.