Beneficial Ownership Registers: The STEP Handbook for Advisers (Consulting Editor: Paolo Panico)

Abstract ‘Beneficial Ownership Registers’, the latest edition in the ‘ST EP Handbook for Advisers’series is reviewed. Its exposition of the varied approaches adopted in the EEA following therecent transposition dates of the EU's Fourth and Fifth Anti-money Laundering Directives,which together require the maintenance of publicly accessible beneficial ownership registers,is discussed alongside its description of the approaches adopted in the Crown Dependenciesand the USA and against the historical background to the identification of the ‘beneficialowners’ of trusts and other entities and legal arrangements within the EU.