Through Law No. 129 of March 17, 2020, it has been transferred to the Superintendence of Non-Financial Subjects the custody of the information on the identity of the Final Beneficiaries of legal entities. Previously, it was already the obligation of the Resident Agents to identify the Final Beneficiaries of all the entities for which they provided their services.
The function of the Superintendence will be to custody, conserve and access the information provided by the Resident Agents, through a technological platform, which ensures the privacy and confidentiality of the data and information of the legal persons that use these entities with a commercial, estate or estate planning purposes.
In this way, said information will be kept in a restricted-access database of the Superintendence known as Sistema Unico, to which third parties may not have access. Only Panamanian public entities duly authorized by law may access. Among them, the Financial Analysis Unit, the Public Ministry, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, the Superintendence of Banks, and the Superintendence of the Stock Market, only through the submission of a formal request related to specific cases within investigative processes related to money laundering, terrorism financing and weapons of mass destruction. A third party may not have access or obtain such information as a result of legal disputes.
The Resident Agents must file the following minimum information on the Final Beneficiaries in the database of the Superintendence, which will be collected during their due diligence process and must be updated: full name; personal identification document number; date of birth; address; date as of having the condition of Final Beneficiary of the entity; main activity. This information must be completed in the “Sistema Único” within 30 business days after the incorporation of the entity, after the appointment of e new Resident Agent or after any change in the information previously provided. For existing entities, the Resident Agent will have a grace period of 6 months to feed the information into the database, once the “Sistema Unico” is active.
According to the law, the Final Beneficiary of an entity is the person or individuals who own or control 25% or more of the shares or voting rights in the legal person, or whoever own, control and/or exercise significant influence over the account relationship, contractual and/or business relationship, or the natural person in whose name or benefit a transaction is made, which also includes natural persons who exercise final control over a legal person.
