The question of control is not answered by a name on a letterhead. A director is a disclosed appointment. A beneficial owner is a position that official sources may or may not reach — depending on jurisdiction, corporate form, and the year the register was last reformed. This report maps both layers: who is formally appointed to act, and who holds the economic interest behind that appointment.
The angle is control. Not incorporation history, not financial performance, not litigation exposure — those are separate products. This report answers one question: who actually controls the company, and what can an official source confirm about that control.
What the report establishesAppointed directors by name and date; registered shareholders with stated holdings; beneficial owner disclosures where the relevant register makes them available. Source: official company registers across covered jurisdictions · verified September 2026. Coverage35 jurisdictions across the EU, UK, common law offshore centres, and selected CIS markets. The specific jurisdictions covered at each tier are listed in the scope table below. PriceFixed at three tiers: Signal €1,350 · Standard €2,850 · Extended €6,300. Price is confirmed before work begins. What the sources do not reachNominee arrangements, trust structures, and discretionary beneficial interests are not disclosed in any company register. Where the chain stops, the report names the stopping point and the reason.Formal control and economic control are recorded differently. Directors appear in company registers because appointment is a filing obligation in most jurisdictions. Beneficial owners appear — where they appear at all — because a separate disclosure regime requires it.
These two layers do not always point to the same person. A director may act under instruction from a shareholder who is not a director. A registered shareholder may hold on behalf of a beneficial owner who is not named in any public document. The report traces both layers and states, for each jurisdiction, how far the official record goes.
The distinction matters for a cross-border buyer. In a transaction spanning multiple jurisdictions, the controlling party may be registered in one country, hold shares through an intermediate entity in a second, and be the beneficial owner of record — or not of record — in a third. Each layer requires a different source.
Director registers are the most consistently available layer of corporate disclosure. In most jurisdictions covered by this report, director appointments and resignations are filed with the company register and are retrievable by company name or registration number.
The report extracts, for each entity reviewed:
The depth of historical data varies by jurisdiction. Some registers hold full appointment history since incorporation. Others retain only the current snapshot. Where history is truncated, the report states the earliest date the register covers.
Director data is a Level 1 source for this report: it is extracted directly from the primary register, with the extraction date recorded for each jurisdiction.
Shareholder registers are less uniform than director registers. In some jurisdictions, the full shareholder list — with names, addresses, and percentage holdings — is a public filing updated on each change. In others, only the total number of shares is disclosed. In others still, the shareholder register is a private document held by the company and not filed with any public authority.
The report distinguishes three situations:
Full disclosure: The register names shareholders, states their holdings, and is publicly accessible. The report extracts this data directly.
Partial disclosure: The register discloses some shareholder information — for example, shareholders above a threshold percentage — but not the full list. The report extracts what is available and states the threshold.
No public disclosure: The shareholder register is not a public document in this jurisdiction. The report states this explicitly and identifies what alternative sources, if any, exist.
For corporate shareholders — where a company holds shares in another company — the report traces the chain one level further where the intermediate entity is registered in a covered jurisdiction. Beyond that level, the chain is described as it stands, with the terminal point named.
Beneficial ownership disclosure is the most variable layer. The regulatory landscape shifted significantly after the CJEU ruling in Cases C-37/20 and C-601/20, which found that unrestricted public access to beneficial ownership registers was incompatible with fundamental rights under EU law. Most EU member states have since restricted public access to their UBO registers.
The practical result: in most EU jurisdictions, beneficial ownership data is accessible only to persons who can demonstrate a legitimate interest, or to competent authorities. The definition of legitimate interest, and the procedure for asserting it, differs by member state.
The report handles this in two ways. Where access is available through a legitimate interest procedure, the report includes the result of that procedure. Where access is restricted and no legitimate interest pathway applies, the report states the restriction, names the register, and identifies the last publicly available data point.
Two jurisdictions in the covered set maintain registers with broader access conditions: the UK's PSC register and Poland's CRBR. Both are noted in the report with their current access conditions verified as of the extraction date. Access conditions for both are subject to change and are confirmed at the time of each instruction.
Outside the EU, beneficial ownership disclosure regimes vary widely. Some offshore jurisdictions maintain no public UBO register at all. Others have introduced registers accessible to financial institutions but not to the general public. The report maps the access condition for each jurisdiction and states what was retrievable under that condition.
Official registers record what was filed. They do not record what was not disclosed, what was disclosed incorrectly, or what changed after the last filing date.
The following limitations apply to every report produced under this product:
Nominee arrangements. A nominee director or nominee shareholder appears in the register under their own name. The underlying principal — the person on whose behalf the nominee acts — is not recorded in any company register. The report identifies nominee service providers where they are known from the register context, but cannot name the underlying principal from register data alone.
Trust structures. Where shares are held by a trustee, the trustee appears as the registered shareholder. The beneficiaries of the trust are not disclosed in any company register. The report names the trustee and states that the beneficial interest is held in trust, where this is apparent from the filing.
Discretionary interests. Options, warrants, and other instruments that may confer control without current registered ownership are not captured in standard register extracts. The report does not cover these instruments unless they appear in a filed document.
Stale data. Company registers update on filing, not on event. A director who resigned last week may still appear as current if the resignation has not yet been filed. The report records the extraction date for each source and does not represent the data as real-time.
Chain termination. Where the ownership chain leads to a jurisdiction not covered by this report, or to a structure — such as a foundation or a discretionary trust — that does not file beneficial ownership data, the chain is described to its last identifiable point. The report names the terminal entity and the reason the chain cannot be extended further.
These are not failures of the report. They are the ceiling of what the sources allow. The ceiling is stated before payment.
Discrepancies between sources are reported as findings, not resolved editorially.
The most common discrepancy pattern in cross-border corporate structures: the company register in jurisdiction A names individual X as the sole director and shareholder; the company register in jurisdiction B names a corporate entity as the shareholder of the same company; the corporate entity in jurisdiction B names individual Y as its sole director and shareholder. Individual X and individual Y are different people.
This pattern — which appears in a material proportion of cross-border structures reviewed — does not resolve itself from register data. The report presents both records, states the discrepancy, and identifies what further source, if any, could address it.
A second common pattern: the UBO register in an EU jurisdiction names a beneficial owner; the shareholder register in the same jurisdiction names a different entity as the registered shareholder. The report presents both records and notes that the UBO register reflects a self-declaration, not an independently verified ownership chain.
Where the sources disagree, the disagreement is the finding.
The three tiers differ in jurisdictional depth and source coverage, not in the quality of analysis applied to each source retrieved.
| Tier | Price | What is included | Not included |
|---|---|---|---|
| Signal | €1,350 | Directors and registered shareholders for a single entity in one jurisdiction. Current snapshot from the primary company register. Extraction date recorded. | Historical director data beyond current snapshot; UBO register query; intermediate holding entities; jurisdictions beyond the primary entity's registration. |
| Standard | €2,850 | Directors, registered shareholders, and UBO register query (where accessible) for a single entity. Intermediate holding entities traced one level in covered jurisdictions. Up to three jurisdictions. Discrepancy analysis between sources. | Trust and nominee principal identification; entities registered in non-covered jurisdictions; instruments not appearing in filed documents. |
| Extended | €6,300 | Full two-layer analysis — directors and beneficial owners — across the complete corporate structure, up to 35 jurisdictions. Chain traced to terminal point with reason for termination stated. Discrepancy analysis across all sources. Historical director data where register provides it. | Nominee principal identification; trust beneficiary identification; instruments not in filed documents; legal qualification of findings. |
Price is fixed. It does not change based on the number of entities found in the structure or the number of jurisdictions in which they are registered, within the tier's stated coverage. If the structure exceeds the tier's scope, the applicable tier is identified before work begins.
Does the report name the ultimate beneficial owner? The report names the beneficial owner as recorded in the relevant register, where that register is accessible under the applicable access conditions. Where the register is not accessible, or where the structure uses a nominee, trust, or offshore entity that does not file beneficial ownership data, the report names the last identifiable point in the chain and states why the chain cannot be extended. The report does not represent a register entry as a verified fact about underlying economic interest.
What happens if the UBO register in a relevant jurisdiction is restricted? The report states the restriction, identifies the register, and records the access condition as of the extraction date. Where a legitimate interest procedure exists and applies, the report includes the result. Where no access pathway is available, the restriction is the finding.
How long does the report take? Turnaround depends on the tier and the jurisdictions involved. Signal reports covering a single jurisdiction are typically completed within three to five business days. Standard and Extended reports involving multiple jurisdictions and UBO register queries take longer; an indicative timeline is confirmed at the time of instruction.
Is the price fixed regardless of what is found? Yes. The price covers the analytical work, not the outcome. A structure that turns out to be simple does not cost less; a structure that turns out to be complex does not cost more, within the tier's stated scope.
Can the report be used as due diligence documentation for a transaction? The report is a factual compilation from official sources. It can form part of a due diligence file. It does not constitute legal advice and does not include a legal qualification of the findings. For advice on the legal implications of the findings for a specific transaction, contact info@vlolawfirm.com.
What if the company is registered in a jurisdiction not covered by the report? The report covers 35 jurisdictions. If the relevant entity is registered outside this set, the report states this at the terminal point of the chain. Coverage can be extended for specific jurisdictions on request; availability and pricing are confirmed before work begins.
What is the difference between a director report and a beneficial owner report? A director report establishes who is formally appointed to act on behalf of the company. A beneficial owner report establishes who holds the economic interest in the company. This product covers both layers in a single report because the two questions are analytically connected: the director layer is the starting point for tracing the ownership chain.
Official company registers across 35 covered jurisdictions — primary source for director and shareholder data. Specific register names and URLs are provided in the delivered report for each jurisdiction queried, with extraction dates recorded per source.
UK Companies House — https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk — extracted September 2026.
Poland Central Register of Beneficial Owners (CRBR) — https://crbr.podatki.gov.pl — extracted September 2026. Access conditions verified at time of each instruction.
EU UBO registers — access conditions vary by member state following CJEU Cases C-37/20 and C-601/20. Accessible where legitimate interest procedure applies. Restriction recorded where access is not available.
Disclaimer: This report is a factual compilation from official registers and public sources. It is provided for informational purposes only, does not constitute legal advice, and contains no legal qualification of the facts established. VLO Law Firm assumes no liability for actions taken or not taken based on this material. For advice regarding your particular situation, please contact info@vlolawfirm.com.
Author: James Whitfield — Partner, UK & Common Law, VLO Law Firm