The Ministry of Justice of the Slovak Republic explains the procedure for determining the ultimate beneficial owner in the case of public administration entities of another country in the RPVS. The opinion clarifies why even public entities do not benefit from an exemption and when top management is considered the ultimate beneficiary.
We believe that, since this is a public administration entity—and thus an entity that, as such, does not generate a profit— it is not possible to identify any natural person who would meet the criteria set forth in Section 6a(1)(a) of the Act on the Prevention of Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism. In the above-mentioned case, therefore, the persons referred to in Section 6a(2) of the Act on the Prevention of Money Laundering and the Prevention of Terrorist Financing should be considered the ultimate beneficiaries, i.e., members of the senior management of the public sector partner.
OPINION OF THE MINISTRY OF JUSTICE OF THE SLOVAK REPUBLIC:
In this case, the ZRPVS does not provide for an exception or a different regime for determining the ultimate beneficial owner. Even in the case of entities that are “public administration entities of another state,” it is necessary to verify whether there is a natural person within that entity who would derive a certain economic benefit through the public administration entity’s participation in the public sector partner. Of course, we assume that in most cases it will not actually be possible to identify a natural person pursuant to Section 6a of Act No. 297/2008 Coll., and therefore the management of the public administration entity will be registered as the ultimate beneficiary.
