Has the Court of Justice of the European Union halted the path to transparency?

Luxembourg Commercial Register v. Sovim SA

It has proven difficult to strike a balance between the right to privacy and the need to prevent criminal activities such as money laundering and terrorist financing.

The European Union (hereinafter "EU") Directive on combating money laundering[1] (hereinafter "AMLD") established, among other things, the obligation for Member States to establish central registers of beneficial owners of companies. These registers record or disclose, among other things, personal data on so-called beneficial owners – natural persons who actually "stand" at the end of the ownership structure of companies. On the other hand, the EU also strongly promotes the protection of personal data of natural persons, in particular through the General Data Protection Regulation[2] (hereinafter referred to as the "GDPR").

This natural legal conflict culminated in a recent dispute in the joined cases of Luxembourg Trade Registers (Case C-37/20) and Sovim (Case C-601/20),[3] in which the Court of Justice of the EU seemingly blocked the EU's path to transparency.