Uganda: Requirement to submit beneficial owners’ information
Companies will not be allowed to make any other registrations unless they have provided beneficial owners’ information.
Requirement to submit beneficial owners’ information
The Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) on 11 January 2023 issued a notice urging all companies and partnerships to submit beneficial owners’ information with the URSB no later than 30 days from the date of the notice.
In the notice, URSB indicated that companies and limited liability partnerships will not be allowed to make any other registrations unless they have provided beneficial owners’ information. Furthermore, all applications for incorporation of companies and limited liability partnerships will only be processed upon submission of the beneficial owners’ information.
Background
The Companies Act and the Partnership Act require each company and limited liability partnership registered in Uganda to keep a register of its beneficial owners. A beneficial owner is defined as a natural person who has final ownership or control of a company or a partnership, or a natural person on whose behalf a transaction is conducted in a company or a partnership.
The beneficial owner register discloses the personal information of the beneficial owners, the nature of ownership or control they have in the company or the partnership, and the date they became or ceased to be beneficial owners. A notice of the place where the register is kept, together with a copy of the beneficial owners’ register, must be submitted to the URSB within 14 days from the date of creation of the register.
The format of the notices and information required to be filed are elaborated in the Companies (Beneficial Owner) Regulations, 2023, and the Partnership (Beneficial Owner) Regulations, 2023.
Read a January 2023 report prepared by the KPMG member firm in Kenya
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