New law is applicable to small UK enterprises (LTD) except Scottish LP companies and UK partnerships.
The law provides two options of maintaining the register of beneficiaries, i.e. the company itself running the register of beneficiaries and then submits to Companies House or company sends its data directly to Companies House. In both cases, information on the beneficiaries are publicly available.
Company is obliged to provide data on the beneficiaries, who control more than 25% of the company, and if the ultimate beneficiary ownership of shares is realized through a trust, the trustee information should be disclosed as well.
If a company has four beneficiaries, it does not have to provide information on them to Companies House, which is considered as an exceptional event.
Officially new law will take effect from January 2016.