Who controls a company is not always the person whose name appears on the register. Across 35 jurisdictions, the gap between nominal ownership and actual control is the central verification problem. This page maps what official sources allow — and where each chain of evidence stops.
The angle here is control: not whether a company exists, but who can bind it, who can extract value from it, and what a shareholder can enforce against it. Those questions have different answers in different jurisdictions, and the answers come from different sources.
What the sources showRegistration status, registered directors, filed share capital, and — where available — shareholder lists and filed financial statements. Source: national commercial registers across 35 jurisdictions · verified 2026-03-20. What the sources do not showBeneficial ownership is not disclosed in most jurisdictions following CJEU judgment C-37/20. Nominee arrangements, trust structures, and management agreements are not recorded in any commercial register. Condition of accessAccess conditions vary by jurisdiction: some registers are open without registration; others require a national identifier, a declared legitimate interest, or a fee. The path to each source is part of the work. Ceiling of knowledgeThe ceiling of what the sources allow is stated before payment. No report claims to establish what the sources structurally cannot show.What a counterparty verification covers
A counterparty verification across multiple jurisdictions draws on four distinct source layers. Each layer answers a different question about control.
Registration layer. The commercial register confirms that the entity exists, is active, and holds the legal form stated in the contract. It records the registered address, the date of incorporation, and — in most civil-law jurisdictions — the registered director or managing officer. This layer is the starting point, not the conclusion.
Ownership layer. Shareholder lists, where filed, show nominal ownership. In Germany, the Gesellschafterliste filed at the Handelsregister names GmbH shareholders with their percentage interests. In the United Kingdom, the confirmation statement at Companies House names persons with significant control. In Delaware, no equivalent disclosure exists for LLCs: the register records the registered agent, not the members.
Financial layer. Filed accounts — where mandatory and accessible — show the scale of operations, the presence of intercompany balances, and whether the entity has been trading. Not all jurisdictions require filing. Not all filed accounts are current. The gap between the filing date and the verification date is itself a data point.
Insolvency and enforcement layer. Insolvency registers, court enforcement databases, and gazette notices record proceedings that affect the counterparty's capacity to perform. A negative result in an insolvency register does not confirm the absence of a filed petition: processing delays and jurisdictional gaps mean the register trails events.
The control question: where nominal and actual diverge
Registered ownership and actual control diverge in four recurring patterns across cross-border corporate structures.
Nominee directors and shareholders. A nominee director appears on the register; the person giving instructions does not. The register records the nominee. The management agreement or power of attorney that governs the relationship is a private document, not a filed one.
Multi-layer holding structures. A company in jurisdiction A is owned by a holding company in jurisdiction B, which is owned by a trust in jurisdiction C. Each register shows one layer. Tracing the full chain requires separate access to each jurisdiction's register — and some jurisdictions in the chain may not maintain a public register at all.
Parallel governance instruments. Shareholders' agreements, side letters, and management agreements can override the constitutional documents on file. These instruments are not filed anywhere. Their existence can sometimes be inferred from the filed documents; their content cannot be established from public sources.
Post-CJEU beneficial ownership gap. Following the Court of Justice of the European Union judgment in Case C-37/20 (November 2022), EU member states closed general public access to beneficial ownership registers. Access now requires demonstration of a legitimate interest, and the standard for that demonstration varies by member state. The United Kingdom's PSC register and Poland's CRBR remain accessible, but access conditions for both are subject to ongoing regulatory review.
Jurisdiction coverage: 35 registers, one report
The 35 jurisdictions in this track span common-law and civil-law systems, EU and non-EU registers, and jurisdictions with open online access alongside those requiring in-country agents or formal requests.
Coverage is not uniform. Three structural differences determine what can be established in any given jurisdiction.
Filing obligation. Some jurisdictions require annual filing of accounts and shareholder lists; others require filing only on incorporation or on a change of particulars. A register that has not been updated in three years may still be the only official source.
Access architecture. Online access without registration is available in a minority of jurisdictions. Others require a national identifier (a tax number or identity document issued in that country), a registered account, or a formal written request. The path to the source is part of the verification work.
Language and format. Registers issue documents in the national language. Documents may be scanned images rather than structured data. Certified translation and notarisation requirements vary by downstream use.
The 35-jurisdiction scope of this track means that a single counterparty with subsidiaries in multiple countries can be verified against all relevant registers in one instruction. The output maps what each register shows, what it does not show, and where the chain of evidence stops.
What is included at each tier
Price tiers are not applicable to this overview page. Scope and pricing for counterparty verification reports are provided in response to a request, once the specific jurisdictions and object type are confirmed.
The limit of what the sources allow
Official registers record what was filed. They do not record what was agreed privately, what was structured to avoid disclosure, or what changed after the last filing date.
Four structural limits apply across all 35 jurisdictions in this track.
Beneficial ownership is not publicly accessible in most EU jurisdictions. Following CJEU C-37/20, the default position across the EU is that UBO registers are closed to general public access. A report can establish the chain of nominal ownership to the point where it enters a jurisdiction with no public UBO disclosure — and it will state that explicitly.
Nominee structures are invisible to the register. A nominee director or shareholder is recorded as the holder of record. The underlying principal is not recorded anywhere in the public register. The existence of a nominee arrangement can sometimes be inferred from the pattern of filings; it cannot be confirmed from public sources alone.
Insolvency registers trail events. A negative result means no proceeding has been recorded as of the extraction date. It does not mean no proceeding has been filed. Processing delays, cross-border proceedings not yet recognised, and voluntary arrangements not yet gazetted all create gaps between the register and the current position.
Filed accounts are historical. The most recent filed accounts may be twelve to twenty-four months old at the time of verification, depending on the jurisdiction's filing deadline and the company's compliance record. The financial position at the date of verification is not established by filed accounts.
The ceiling of what the sources allow is stated before payment. A report does not claim to establish what the sources structurally cannot show. Where the chain stops, the report names the stopping point and the reason.