In just three months, the Malta Business Registry initiated defunct procedures against roughly 2,000 companies, with a total of 1,654 companies struck off for being non-compliant, as at February 2020.

This information comes through the first edition of the Malta Financial Services Authority Oversight newsletter, aimed at informing the public about the fight against financial crime.

The MBR’s role is to ensure stakeholders have adequate, accurate and easy access to registers of companies established under Maltese law.

It enforces rules to ensure companies maintain correct records as well as requiring them to provide up to date and accurate information about their ultimate beneficial owners.

The MBR ensures that BO (‘beneficial ownership’) information is up to date through ongoing, random sampling checks.

The Registrar is in the process of striking between 8,000 and 10,000 companies that failed to submit their BO form and annual returns for the last five years.

This procedure seeks to eliminate any abuse from directors and/or shareholders regarding the use of companies for an illegitimate purpose.