Thread by @OCCRP

Investigative journalism suffered a blow last week after the European Court of Justice struck down a key tool in the fight against corruption — public access to company ownership information.

Here’s why “ultimate beneficial ownership” data is so critical👇occrp.org/en/beneficial-…

Journalists have found landmark buildings, insurance companies, and even medical providers held by anonymous companies.

Without access to ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) registries, the true owners may have been a mystery forever. 2/ occrp.org/en/openlux/fre…

Take the historic Ludwig building in Munich, which was bought by an unknown Luxembourg firm called “Adler Pacific Investments.”

Who owned Adler? This wasn’t publicly known until Luxembourg made UBO data public, allowing us to investigate 🔍3/ occrp.org/en/openlux/ind…

It’s important to remember that Luxembourg established a public UBO database only because the EU forced it to.

Now that the ECJ has reversed this requirement, investigative projects like our #OpenLux series are no longer possible in Europe. 4/ occrp.org/en/openlux/

It’s not just Luxembourg that’s important, of course.

UBO data from Cyprus allowed OCCRP to identify European assets owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Andrei Kostin, also known as “Putin’s banker.” #RussianAssetTracker 5/ occrp.org/en/asset-track…

In this investigation, our Turkmen reporters used UBO information in the UK to show how their repressive government had doled out food import contracts to the president’s nephew. 6/
occrp.org/en/investigati…

Since the ECJ ruling, several EU countries have removed their UBO registers — rebuilding a sanctuary for dark money.

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