THEORETICAL AND PRACTICAL PROBLEMS OF ESTABLISHING BENEFICIARY OWNERS OF ECONOMIC LEGAL RELATIONS PARTICIPANTS

The article is devoted to issue establishing and disclosing the beneficial owner by the participants of economic relations. The identification of beneficial owners is an integral and primary component of preventing and combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The current legislation supplemented the range of persons to whom identification and verification procedures should be by trusts and «other similar (to trusts) legal entities». Nevertheless, the definition of beneficial owners in this category of persons has been complicated by the lack of proper legal regulation of trusts at the national level and lack of unification in international law. Subjects of primary financial monitoring must take into account many different types of trusts and similar structures. Trust has to be recognized even in a combination of the beneficiary and the proxy in one person. The concept of «other similar (to trusts) legal entities» should be consolidated by establishing their qualifications. The beneficial owner, unlike the beneficiary, can only be a person who has direct or indirect influence (control) over the client's activities and does not have the status of an intermediary, commercial agent, or nominal owner/holder. The features of the concepts «significant influence on the management or activity of a legal entity» and «decisive influence (control)» are analyzed. The availability of access to insider information and the possibility of its use personally or through third parties should be studied for financial monitoring purposes, as it may indicate the indirect decisive influence on a legal entity or other legal entities.