Advancing Beneficial Ownership Reform in the Western Balkans

This event has already occurred.

Beneficial ownership transparency has emerged as an important policy tool in countries for combating corruption, stemming illicit financial flows, and fighting tax evasion. By collecting and publishing beneficial ownership information, countries around the globe are working to promote corporate accountability and end anonymous companies.

This event, co-convened by OGP, GIZ and OSCE, built on an OGP gathering in March, where government representatives from the Western Balkans shared their current work on beneficial ownership transparency and expressed a desire to convene the broader group of stakeholders for a peer exchange in this area.

This follow-up public event brought together leaders from government, civil society, the media and the private sector for a discussion on the implementation of beneficial ownership reform in the Western Balkans and and presentations on lessons learned from other European countries advancing company ownership transparency, including members of the Beneficial Ownership Leadership Group.

Agenda

Welcome, housekeeping and introduction

• Moderator: Zuzana Wienk, The Currents & OGP Steering Committee

Panel 1: Implementing beneficial ownership transparency

• Implementing open, centralized registries
  • Andrej Leontiev, attorney at TaylorWessing and former advisor to the Government of Slovakia
  • Jaroslav Macek, Chair of the District Court in Žilina, Slovakia
• Working towards the implementation of a BO registry – Company registration
  • Marijana Naumovska, Assistant Head of Registry Department, Central Register of Republic of North Macedonia
• Working towards the implementation of a BO registry – Role of the civil society
  • Robert Sepi, Transparency Serbia
• Working towards the implementation of a BO registry – Drafting legislation
  • Flogers Broqi, Director, Directorate of Research and Methodological Guidance, National Business Center, Albania
  • Open round of Q&A

Panel 2: Beneficial ownership data in action  – Impact and use cases

• Linking BO to procurement transparency
  • Jaroslav Macek, Chair of the District Court in Žilina, Slovakia
• Use of BO data
  • Adam Valcek, Journalist, Daily SME, Slovakia
  • Ivan Angelovski, Journalist, Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN)
  • Dražen Hoffmann, GONG, Croatia
• Benefits of having a BO registry for the private sector
  • Gligor Pandilovski, Macedonian Banking Association
  • Open round of Q&A

Closing: The road ahead for BO reform in the Western Balkans