Privacy in EU/EEA company accounts

[requser]

Which countries in the EU/EEA don't make company accounts and balance sheets available to the public?

 

[mraleph]

Which countries in the EU/EEA don't make company accounts and balance sheets available to the public?

All jurisdictions across EU/EEA have a requirement for transparency which can be restricted with legitimate or paid access privilege. Liechenstein as EFTA member is probably the only jurisdiction that does not publish company accounts and sheets. But, a strict answer to your question is Monaco.

 

[requser]

Thanks for your suggestions!

All jurisdictions across EU/EEA have a requirement for transparency which can be restricted with legitimate or paid access privilege.

In that case, I'll rephrase the question: Which countries make it hard to get access to this information?

 

[mraleph]

Thanks for your suggestions!

You are welcome.

In that case, I'll rephrase the question: Which countries make it hard to get access to this information?

As previously

All jurisdictions across EU/EEA have a requirement for transparency which can be restricted with legitimate or paid access privilege.

From due diligence experience, the access to any EU company's financial information will depend on company type and its statutory obligations beside probable fee for detailed information from respective registry.

To the best of my knowledge, only LI and MC respect financial and UBO privacy - there you depend on actual people for any quality information.

Thus, you should consider EU financial information privacy in context of AMLDs. At best, obsurity exist that can be overcomed by paying an access fee to appropriate registry.

Slightly different is access to UBO registries after Court of justice of the EU ruled against AMLD5 which restricted access to information about beneficial ownership.

By definition, UBO information is more sensitive then information related to accounts and statements, so the latter will probably be available to any interested party w/ or w/o paid fee where the former will require a proof of legitimate interest and paid fee.

 

[bubbledouble]

You can pull financial statements for any company in the EU. That's the great thing about the EU – everything has to be transparent so everyone can see what you're doing, and this includes tax authorities across the EU.

You can forget about hidden financial statements and anonymity as long as you have a company in the EU. There are certain exceptions discussed in Mentor Group Gold, but that's a different conversation.

What is it that makes you not want others to see your financial statements?

 

[koohl]

You can never avoid that the UBO, etc., is visible or that the company's financial statements can be retrieved from some register. However, you can structure your setup in a way that makes it very difficult for others to link it to you personally. @bubbledouble is right about that; it's a different discussion that you should look into in the mentor group.