Investors in Kenya need to be worried. The country’s Attorney General has opened a new web portal for mining details of investors who own more than 10% stakes in companies through secret accounts in efforts to unveil illicit wealth. 

This follows Kenya’s Registrar of Companies’ launch of a new electronic register for filling data on beneficial owners on October 13th, 2020. Information from the register will thereafter be made available to the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA), security agencies and the Financial Reporting Centre, that is tasked with tracking illicit wealth.

“A company shall take reasonable steps to identify the beneficial owners,” says Kenya’s Attorney-General Kihara Kariuki in a regulation. “It is the companies’ duty to investigate and obtain beneficial owner particulars.”

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Here Is What You Need To Know

• Following the opening of the new register, it is now mandatory for new firms in Kenya to fill the beneficial ownership registers ahead of registration. 
• The new portal will contain the investor’s names, phone numbers and residential addresses.
• For companies already in existence, the deadline for filing the register is next month, November, during which they will be expected to update their shareholder records.
• With the new rules, Kenya hopes to curtail insider trading. This includes shedding light on market activity by restricting the use of nominee accounts that investors have been using to evade ownership limits in firms listed on the Nairobi Securities Exchange.
• With the new rules, the country also hopes to curb money laundering. Kenya hopes to achieve this by revealing the true identities of investors owning large blocks of shares in both private and listed companies.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer