Access Info Europe and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) released an important report about the access to the company registers in Europe. The conclusion is as clear as can be: these datas are meticulously hidden.

The Panama Papers scandal has reopened the debate about transparency and freedom of information. For what concerns Europe more specifically, the report It's none of your business!, recently published by Access Info Europe and the OCCRP, seems to confirm that things are really bad when it comes to transparency.

Obstacles

The report focuses on the possibility to access company registers all over Europe. In most European countries, the report finds such access is not guaranteed — at all.

Those interested in information regarding European companies often have to face astronomical costs to be able to access and obtain copies of the necessary documents (in Russia, for instance, a single record is priced as much as at €767!).

According to the report, company registers are freely available only in the United Kingdom and in Denmark — and even there the names of owners are reluctantly given, and doing searches by name remains difficult.

Fight for a more transparent Europe

Freedom of information is essential in any democracy, and this kind of grey area around European companies and their ownership can lead to serious consequences. Money laundering and organized crime are easy to hide if the right of information is not guaranteed.

Governments should increase access to the company register of their country, and this access needs to be tax free to avoid any risk of inequality. It would represent a sort of auto-regulation, since transparency prevents corruption and other illegal processes.