Company Information

The company information module has been developed in partnership with Open Ownership to address two key questions:

  • Which countries have policies and practices in place for the centralized collection and publication of corporate registration and beneficial ownership information?
  • How is corporate ownership and beneficial ownership data being used?

It explores data on companies as a key connecting element of a modern public data infrastructure, supporting trade, trusted business environments, and investigation and enforcement related to anti-corruption and anti-money laundering activities.

To find out more about the development of this thematic module, you can consult our research handbook.

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Company information indicators

Governance: Beneficial ownership

To what extent do relevant laws, regulations, policies, and guidance provide a basis for collecting and publishing beneficial ownership data on companies?

Existence

  • Are there laws, policies, or regulations requiring collection or publication of this information in any form?
    • No.
    • They are being drafted, or are not yet implemented.
    • They exist and are operational.
  • Do relevant laws, policies, regulations, or guidance discuss the publication of open data?
    • There is no mention of data or the publication of data in relevant laws, policies, or guidance.
    • Requirements to publish data are set out in non-binding policy or guidance.
    • Requirements to publish data are set out in binding policy, regulations, or law.
    • Requirements to publish this information as open data are set out in binding policy, regulations, or law.

Elements

Provisions for definitions, kinds, and fields:

  • Definitions comprehensively cover ownership. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Definitions cover control. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Rules or processes exist to protect certain natural persons who are beneficial owners from having their data published. (No, Partially, Yes)

Provisions for data quality:

  • The framework requires a verification process. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • The rules/guidance empower an agency or official to ensure the accurate and timely collection and publication of required data. (No, Partially, Yes)

Provisions for openness, timing, and structure:

  • The rules/guidance require beneficial ownership data to be collected in a central register or database. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • The rules/guidance require that data is regularly updated. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • The rules/guidance support the collection of structured data. (No, Partially, Yes)

Extent

  • How widely do these laws, regulations, policies, or guidance apply?
    • They cover a limited number of localities or companies (e.g., only companies operating in a single sector or in a single sub-national jurisdiction/state).
    • They cover, or are representative of those covering, many localities or companies.
    • They cover the majority of limited companies in the country.

Availability: Beneficial ownership

To what extent is company beneficial ownership information available as structured open data?

Existence

  • Is this data available online in any form?
    • Data is not available online.
    • Data is available, but not as a result of government action.
    • Data is available from government, or because of government actions.

Elements

Data fields and quality:

  • The dataset contains unique identifiers for each company. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • The dataset contains identifying information for each beneficial owner. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • The dataset contains details of the interests held by each beneficial owner. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Data includes information about individuals’ sex and/or gender. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • The data is published according to one or more relevant data standards. (No, Partially, Yes)

Data openness, timing, and structure:

  • Dataset is available free of charge. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Data is openly licensed. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Data is available in all the country’s official or national languages. If the country has no official or national languages, data is available in the major languages of the country. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • There are accessible and open official tools available to help users explore data. (No, Partially , Yes)
  • Data is timely and updated. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Historical data is available that allows users to track change over time. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Data is provided in machine-readable format(s) (No, Partially, Yes)
  • The machine-readable dataset is available as a whole (No, Partially, Yes)

Negative scoring:

  • This information is missing required data.
  • The availability of this data has been affected by government response to COVID-19. (No, Partially, Yes)

Extent

  • How comprehensive is the data assessed for this question?
    • The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without available data, or with data of a lesser quality.
    • The data assessed covers one or more localities, and is a representative example of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.
    • The data assessed provides national coverage.
  • Is the data restricted to a particular sector? Or does it have broad coverage of companies in the country?
    • The data covers companies from a single economic sector (e.g., extractives industry) and there is minimal beneficial ownership data available from other sectors.
    • The data covers, or is representative of, the kind of data that cover, companies involved in a number of different sectors (e.g., extractives, government procurement, financial markets).
    • The data covers the majority of registered companies in the country.

Availability: Company register

To what extent is company information available as structured open data?

Existence

  • Is this data available online in any form?
    • Data is not available online.
    • Data is available, but not as a result of government action.
    • Data is available from government, or because of government actions.

Elements

Data fields and quality:

  • The dataset contains unique identifiers for each company. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Basic company information, including company name, legal form, status, and registered address. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • The data contains details of each director. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Structured data on company accounts is available for each registered company. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Data includes information about individuals’ sex and/or gender. (No, Partially, Yes)

Data openness, timing, and structure:

  • Dataset is available free of charge. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Data is openly licensed. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Data is available in all the country’s official or national languages. If the country has no official or national languages, data is available in the major languages of the country. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • There are accessible and open official tools available to help users explore data. (No, Partially , Yes)
  • Data is timely and updated. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Historical data is available that allows users to track change over time. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • Data is provided in machine-readable format(s) (No, Partially, Yes)
  • The machine-readable dataset is available as a whole (No, Partially, Yes)

Negative scoring:

  • This information is missing required data.
  • The availability of this data has been affected by government response to COVID-19. (No, Partially, Yes)

Extent

  • How comprehensive is the data assessed for this question?
    • The data assessed covers one or more localities, but there are many other localities without available data, or with data of a lesser quality.
    • The data assessed covers one or more localities, and is a representative example of the kind of data that can be found for most but not all localities.
    • The data assessed provides national coverage.

Use: Corporate due dilligence

To what extent do products or services exist that use open company data to support due diligence?

Existence

  • Is there evidence of this data being used in products/services?
    • There is no evidence of such products or services in the country.
    • One or more products/services exist, but they do not appear to make use of open datasets.
    • One or more products/services exist using making use of official open government datasets.
    • One or more products/services exist making use of open government datasets, and there is evidence of their widespread use.

Elements

User groups:

  • There is evidence of these products and services being promoted to, or used by, government. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • There is evidence of these products/services being promoted to, or used by, civil society (No, Partially, Yes)
  • There is evidence of these products/services being promoted to, or used by, the private sector. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • There is evidence of these products and services being promoted to, or used by, media. (No, Partially, Yes)

Specific features:

  • There is evidence that at least one of the examples cited is making use of beneficial ownership data. (No, Partially, Yes)
  • At least one of the examples identified describes using artificial Intelligence or machine learning to process data (No, Partially, Yes)

Extent

  • There is evidence that these uses have had or are having meaningful positive impacts.
    • No
    • Partially
    • Yes