By: Olga Králíčková
November 24, 2025 4 min read
The Ministry of Justice has announced how it plans to resolve the unclear situation surrounding the register of beneficial owners (“register”). As we have already written here, the Czech courts ruled in the summer that legal entities cannot be fined for failing to register their beneficial owners, nor can they be punished by other sanctions provided for in Act No. 37/2021 Coll., on the registration of beneficial owners (the “Act”). The reason is that the current form of the law is inconsistent with EU law, according to which the disclosure of data to the general public is contrary to the right to privacy of registered individuals.
Considering the key role of the beneficial owner registration in the fight against money laundering and the need to keep the entries in the register up to date, which in practice has been advocated by other stakeholders (notaries, FAU), it was necessary to resolve the situation and to convince the registrants that the registration obligation still exists.
The Ministry of Justice has now published its intention to make an amendment to the Act, which would close the register to the general public from mid-December 2025. It would continue to be accessible only to representatives of selected professions that need this information to carry out their activities and must verify the origin of assets, such as lawyers or tax advisers. Persons with a legitimate interest, such as the media or non-profit organizations, will be referred to eight county courts, where they can obtain the record upon proving their legal grounds.
After more than four months, the dilemma of whether to register or not to register at the cost of losing privacy, but violating the law and effectively making a whole range of ordinary tasks impossible, will become clearer for those registering. The obligation to register beneficial owners has never ceased and it is obvious that after the amendment comes into force, the state will start to control and enforce it again.
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