Armenia and Latvia became first countries to publish data in line with the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard

In September, 2021 Open Ownership published an article about countries leading beneficial ownership transparency reforms. According to the article:

“Armenia and Latvia have become the first countries to publish beneficial ownership data in line with Open Ownership’s Beneficial Ownership Data Standard (BODS).

BODS provides a framework for collecting and publishing beneficial ownership data, resulting in data that is interoperable, more easily reused and of higher quality.

With an initial focus on extractive industry companies, Armenia has begun publishing beneficial ownership data in line with BODS via its company register (see this example). From early next year, it will expand these beneficial ownership transparency measures to companies operating in the media and other sectors.

The Armenian register also makes use of our open-source Beneficial Ownership Visualization System to generate easy-to-understand visual representations of beneficial ownership structures for companies declaring in line with BODS.

Latvia is adopting BODS for its whole economy with data being published by the Register of Enterprises of the Republic of Latvia.

Thom Townsend, executive director of Open Ownership, said: “It is fantastic to see Armenia and Latvia taking the lead internationally on beneficial ownership transparency by publishing data in line with our data standard.”