Informational, not legal advice
Key definitions
Beneficial owner skutečný majitel The natural person who ultimately owns or controls a company, even through a chain of other entities.: the natural person who ultimately owns or controls a legal entity — through ownership, voting rights, or other decisive influence (AMLR Art. 2(1)(28)). Obliged person povinná osoba An entity legally required to identify and keep records of its beneficial owners under AML law.: an entity legally required to identify and verify beneficial owners. Ownership and control structure: the full chain of subjects and relationships from the Verified entity ověřovaná entita The subject company at the base of the structure — the entity whose ownership and control chain is being verified. to its beneficial owners.
AMLR — Regulation (EU) 2024/1624
The directly-applicable core of the EU anti-money-laundering framework. It defines the beneficial owner, sets the 25% ownership/voting threshold and the "control by other means" test, and requires entities to obtain and hold adequate, accurate, and current beneficial-ownership information (Art. 2(1)(28); Art. 51–55; Art. 62–67). Eurcor's data model mirrors these determination criteria.
AML Directive (EU) 2024/1640
Sets how beneficial-ownership registers operate and who may access them, and provides for cross-border interconnection. It replaces the register regime of Directives 2015/849 and 2018/843, and reflects the CJEU's rulings in C-37/20 and C-601/20 (Sovim) that unconditional public access is not permitted. Eurcor's three access tiers implement this directive.
Open Data Directive (EU) 2019/1024
Governs the reuse of public-sector information and creates the category of "high-value datasets" that must be made available free, in machine-readable, bulk form (Art. 5; Art. 14; Annex I). This is the basis for Eurcor publishing the registry as open, reusable data.
Implementing Reg. (EU) 2023/138 — high-value datasets
The Commission's implementing act lists company and company-ownership data as a high-value dataset (Annex, Section 5; point 5.1), turning the Open Data Directive's general principle into a concrete duty to publish it free, in machine-readable, bulk form. OFN is Eurcor's conformant format for that duty.
FATF Recommendations 24–25
The global standard behind the EU regime. FATF Recommendations 24 and 25 require countries to ensure competent authorities have timely access to adequate, accurate, and up-to-date beneficial-ownership information for legal persons and arrangements. Cited for context — they inform the EU instruments rather than binding Eurcor directly.
Czech register of beneficial owners
Eurcor sits alongside the national statutory layer: the Act on the Register of Beneficial Owners (Act No. 37/2021 Coll.), the AML Act (Act No. 253/2008 Coll., notably §4(4)), and the open-data basis in Act No. 106/1999 Coll. (§3a), whose formal-standard (OFN) mechanism Eurcor follows.
GDPR balance
Everything above operates within data-protection law. Processing is lawful and purpose-limited, personal data is minimised, and data subjects keep their rights (GDPR Regulation 2016/679, Art. 5, 6, 9, and 12–22; Czech Act No. 110/2019 Coll.). The CJEU's C-601/20 (Sovim) fixes the outer limit on public disclosure.
Access-tier legal basis (summary)
Full access for authorities and FIUs rests on the AMLD and AMLR; legitimate-interest access rests on the AMLD as bounded by C-601/20; the limited-public set rests on the AMLD's minimum-disclosure provisions read with the GDPR. See Access & privacy for how each tier maps to what a user actually sees.
Informational, not legal advice