In light of the latest court of justice of the European Union judgments, how can legitimate interest be defined to achieve the right balance between transparency and the protection of privacy in the processing of data?

Abstract

Achieving the right balance between the right to privacy and the principle of transparency in company beneficial ownership information have been the subject of multiple debates. This paper analysed the recent judgments given by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) namely C-37/20 and C601/20, and how these decisions rejected the amendments which were introduced in article 30(5) of the 5th Money Laundering Directive which had established that company beneficial ownership information should be publicly accessible. The effect of these judgments have rekindled the previous practice whereby ‘legitimate interest’ has to be proven in order to be able to access beneficial ownership information. Defining ‘legitimate interest’ comes with a multitude of complexities. Such complexities were also reflected in the amendments brought forward in the 2018 AML directive. Through this dissertation, the author aims to delve deep into the concept of legitimate interest and how this can be defined to achieve the right balance between transparency and the right to privacy. Through detailed analysis of the gathered information and the feedback received from experts in the field through the gathering of primary data, the author provided valuable insight and contributed with recommendations on how the legal framework can be improved in order to help registry of companies in their assessment and definition of legitimate interest in the wake of the CJEU judgements.