Art. 15 Exceptions to the access rules to beneficial ownership registers | Sixth anti-money laundering (AML 6) directive | AML

This article acts as a safety valve to the access rights established in Articles 11 and 12, allowing Member States to carve out exemptions to beneficial ownership information disclosure in narrowly defined exceptional circumstances.

The core rationale is personal safety and legal incapacity: where disclosure would place a beneficial owner at disproportionate risk of serious harm, or where the beneficial owner is a minor or legally incapable, national law may shield that individual's information from public or obliged entity access.

Critically, any such exemption must be granted on a case-by-case basis following a detailed evaluation, and both administrative review and judicial remedy must remain available.

Important points:

Member States must define the exceptional circumstances in national law and ensure exemptions are granted individually, not as blanket rules.
Both the right to administrative review and the right to an effective judicial remedy must be guaranteed for decisions granting exemptions, and Member States must publish annual statistics on exemptions granted and report them to the Commission.
Exemptions under this article do not apply to obliged entities that are public officials, as defined under Article 3, point (3)(b), of Regulation (EU) 2024/1624.

In exceptional circumstances to be laid down in national law, where the access referred to in Articles 11(3) and 12(1) would expose the beneficial owner to disproportionate risk of fraud, kidnapping, blackmail, extortion, harassment, violence or intimidation, or where the beneficial owner is a minor or otherwise legally incapable, Member States shall provide for an exemption from such access to all or part of the personal information on the beneficial owner. Member States shall ensure that such exemptions are granted on a case-by-case basis upon a detailed evaluation of the exceptional nature of the circumstances and confirmation that those disproportionate risks exist. The right to an administrative review of the decision granting an exemption and the right to an effective judicial remedy shall be guaranteed. A Member State that has granted exemptions shall publish annual statistical data on the number of exemptions granted and the reasons given and report the data to the Commission.
Exemptions granted pursuant to this Article shall not apply to obliged entities as referred to in Article 3, point (3)(b), of Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 that are public officials.