Searching for natural persons in the Trade Register will soon be possible

Civil-law notaries will soon be able to search the Trade Register for natural persons. Director bans will also be made public. This is evident from a decree amending the Trade Register Decree. This fulfills a request from the Royal Netherlands Association of Civil-Law Notaries (KNB). The KNB urges civil-law notaries to take advantage of this opportunity as soon as possible, expected by October 1st. This will enable them to fulfill their gatekeeper role even more effectively.

In 2019, the Trade Register Act was amended to enable civil-law notaries to search for natural persons. A recent amendment to the Trade Register Decree designates civil-law notaries as the party who can request the provision of data from the Trade Register classified by natural persons. Civil-law notaries can request this for the performance of their statutory duties, as described in Article 2, paragraph 1, of the Civil-Law Notaries Act.

Cross-connections
Civil-law notaries perform various statutory duties, including the establishment of legal entities. If there is reasonable doubt about their client's good intentions, the civil-law notary is obligated to refuse their services. At that point, the civil-law notary must conduct further investigation. If this leads to the conviction that the client's intentions are good, the civil-law notary can provide their services. This further investigation is facilitated by the civil-law notary's ability to obtain information from the Trade Register, classified by natural persons. This information can reveal cross-connections, such as which other legal entities the client is involved with.

Various notaries
Clients with bad intentions try to avoid difficult questions by spreading their assignments across various notaries across the country. Each notary then only has insight into an individual assignment, and none of them has insight into the overall picture and the interconnections. This can obscure potential risks of misuse of legal entities. This can be countered by being able to search for natural persons.

Customer due diligence
Civil-law notaries are not formally required to request overviews categorized by natural person in all relevant cases. This is also unnecessary, as civil-law notaries are already required to perform customer due diligence under the Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing (Prevention) Act. This means, among other things, that they must take the necessary steps to identify the risks their services may entail. Consulting overviews categorized by natural person in relevant cases is a logical part of this.

Lobby
The Royal Netherlands Bar Association (KNB) has been advocating for civil-law notaries to be able to search for natural persons in the Trade Register since 2013. And with success. Soon, civil-law notaries will be able to see during incorporation or share transfers whether a founder, director, or share acquirer is already involved in multiple legal entities. This can indicate the misuse of legal entities, which civil-law notaries are keen to prevent. To search for natural persons, civil-law notaries require authorization. More information will follow.

Register of administrative bans
The 2019 amendment to the Trade Register Act created a legal basis for a (public) register of management bans. The register of management bans includes several types of management bans, including the civil-law management ban introduced in 2016. The Trade Register Decree determines which information is recorded about a person subject to a management ban. It also specifies which of these data are publicly accessible for the duration of the ban. This includes name, place of birth, country of birth, and year of birth. This information is published on the Chamber of Commerce website.