UBO affidavit requirement, deferred or waived

The enacting of the state of emergency brings about a series of changes regarding the deadline for submitting the affidavit regarding the ultimate beneficial owners ("UBO Affidavit"), as this obligation has been initially set up by Law no. 129/2019 on the prevention and combating of money laundering and terrorist financing ("AML Law"). In this regard, the Government Emergency Ordinance no. 29/2020 regarding some economic and fiscal-budgetary measures[1] ("GEO no. 29/2020") extends the deadline for submission of the annual or amending UBO Affidavit, and temporarily suspends the obligation to file such document at the moment of incorporation, for all companies and other legal entities registered with the Trade Registry Office and associations, foundations and trusts. Therefore, GEO no. 29/2020 provides for:

» deferring the deadline for submitting the annual UBO Affidavit or the affidavit by which a former, already given affidavit is being updated, this being applicable for all companies, associations and other entities existing at the time of the enactment of GEO no. 29/2020;

» waiving the requirement to submit, as part of the incorporation application, the initial UBO Affidavit for all companies, associations and other entities that are to be registered after the enactment of GEO no. 29/2020,

in both aforesaid cases the provisions being applicable for a period of three months that will start lapsing from the end of the state of emergency. At the same time, for associations and foundations, the period during which they can fulfil their obligation to update their articles of incorporation with certain information required as a result of the entry into force of the AML Law has been extended with the same duration. It is important to mention that the possible extension of the duration for which the state of emergency was enacted (i.e. 30 days which started on March 16^th, 2020) will implicitly lead to the prolongation of the extended terms, as described above.

 

[1] Published in the Official Gazette, Part I no. 230 of March 21^st, 2020 and in force from the same date.