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Federal Ministry of Finance in Berlin
Photo: Florian Gaertner / Photothek / Getty Images
The German authorities have been informing company owners for more than two years when journalists or activists make inquiries about their companies with the transparency register.
According to SPIEGEL information, companies submitted 247 requests for information about possible research requests in 2021, and in 119 cases the authorities actually transmitted the requested information.
In 2022 there were already 309 applications and 176 transfers.
Christian Mihr, Managing Director of Reporters Without Borders, sees this as a threat to independent research: Because even if this information were given anonymously, the company could "potentially trace which journalist it was."
This applies in particular "if it is known that the colleague has worked for the company in the past".
"Questionable practice"
Fabio De Masi, former member of the Bundestag (left) and fellow in the citizens' movement Finanzwende, speaks of a "questionable practice", also because one sometimes has to deal with a serious criminal milieu.
For example, Maltese journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia was blown up by a car bomb in 2017.
The Slovakian journalist Ján Kuciak was shot in 2018, the Greek investigative journalist Giorgos Karaivaz in 2021. They all regularly researched companies and their cash flows as well as organized crime.
At the beginning of February, the Luxembourg Minister of Justice, Sam Tanson, announced that Luxembourg was also planning to inform companies about research upon request.
The country wants to follow the example of Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, and possibly go one step further: company owners could soon find out the professional group of the person making the request - or even their name.
According to SPIEGEL information, this practice is already common in Lithuania.
Since the transparency register there went into operation in August 2022, owners have the right to know who is researching them.
According to the Lithuanian Ministry of Justice, first names and surnames of individuals will be transmitted in addition to legal entities.
The Netherlands is also currently examining
Transparency activists see a massive step backwards in the fight against money laundering and corruption.
Transparency International said it was concerned about this practice and urged EU countries to remove such regulations as they would put journalists and civil society organizations at risk.
"In the case of money laundering and similar reports of suspicious activity, it is a general principle that the person concerned is not informed or may not be informed at all."
The background to the planned new regulation is a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) from November last year, which sees public access to transparency registers as inconsistent with the protection of personal data enshrined in European law.
Since the decision, numerous countries have closed their transparency registers to the public, and some are currently developing new regulations.
The ability to provide owners with information about inquiries was already included in the EU's fifth anti-money laundering directive in 2018, but few countries had implemented it.
In Germany, the parliamentary groups of the CDU, SPD and FDP had voted, among other things under pressure from business lobby groups, to include this procedure in the law.
Since then, company owners have been told that they are being researched – but not by exactly who.