ABSTRACT
Corruption in commercial enterprise often is enabled and enhanced by the use of legal structures like companies, trusts and partnerships to conceal the “beneficial ownership” of assets. Features of corporate opacity help to generate, conceal and maintain the resources necessary for many corrupt relations and actions. This has prompted various legislative responses at both the domestic and European level, but critical issues remain under-explored regarding the laws’ likely effectiveness, as well as their implications for human rights. This chapter brings together insights from criminal law, company law and regulatory studies to provide a novel doctrinal and theoretical analysis of the key legal measures that seek to improve transparency and thereby reveal the beneficial ownership of assets implicated in corrupt practices.
