Stephen Abbott Pugh

Uncovering UBO Due Diligence and Hidden Risks | Asia Verify AsiaVerify is plugged into Asia's most authoritative and compliant government and regulatory sources. Our unprecedented coverage and intelligent platform opens the way for businesses to engage in Asia...

The Hidden UBO Web: Why Risk-Aware Businesses Must Uncover Ownership Before It’s Too Late (new blog post from the AsiaVerify team) asiaverify.com/the-hidden-u... #beneficialownership #UBO

Turks and Caicos Islands Parliament approves amendments to the UK overseas territory's beneficial ownership framework by extending coverage to foreign companies, updating the definition of a beneficial owner and expanding access to beneficial ownership information tcweeklynews.com/tci-passes-l...

Register of Interests Making it easy to keep an eye on the UK’s parliaments. Discover who represents you, how they’ve voted and what they’ve said in debates.

A new House of Commons register of interests has been released and uploaded to TheyWorkForYou https://www.theyworkforyou.com/interests

Who owns what — and why it matters.

Our partners at @opensanctions.org enriched global sanctions lists with Russian company data. The result?
New leads on risk networks worth investigating.

🧵 Examples:
📌 New media moguls post-Crimea
www.opensanctions.org/entities/ru-...

See more in the 2nd part

Introducing Horizons: A Revolutionary Investigative Platform Built to Solve Global Challenges On Thursday, July 31, 2025, C4ADS publicly launched Horizons — our flagship investigative platform designed by investigators, for investigators. We’re excited to provide access to the platform for…

From uncovering illicit networks to tracing financial flows, strong investigations demand more than access — they demand tools that keep up. So we built our own.

Introducing Horizons: a platform by investigators, for investigators. 1/4 🧵

More 👇
buff.ly/N6VHbUp

Good news alert

In 2024, renewables supplied more than half of the UK's electricity for the first time over a year, reaching a record share of 50.4%

Renewables and nuclear combined hit a new high of 64.7%

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6889ec...

Mexico recently gazetted changes to its anti-money laundering regime which came into effect immediately, including obliging trusts to declare beneficial ownership, lowering the beneficial ownership threshold to 25% and changing the definition of a beneficial owner www.step.org/industry-new...

Written statements - Written questions, answers and statements - UK Parliament Information from UK Parliament on written questions & answers, written statements and daily reports.

In a UK Parliament written statement, Stephen Doughty MP provides an update on illicit finance conversations with the UK's Overseas Territories and outlines next steps to make their beneficial ownership registers more accessible questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-stat...

Improving the effectiveness of the Money Laundering Regulations This consultation considers changes to improve the Money Laundering Regulations while minimising burdens on legitimate customers.

🎉Big win: the Government has just announced new transparency requirements for offshore trusts owning homes in the UK.

There's still work to do to make that data accessible, but we're a step closer to knowing the real owners of UK properties 🔍🏠

www.gov.uk/government/c...

Who profits from illegal fishing?

The OECD says: time to follow the money.

New recommendation urges countries to cut subsidies to IUU-linked vessels — and shine a light on ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO).

Read our recent article👇
globalfishingwatch.org/article/why-...

#IUUfishing #UBO

Almost 40,000 companies face strike-off over ownership details Tens of thousands of companies face being struck off for not filing details of their beneficial owners, as is required by law.

Almost 40,000 Irish companies face strike-off over failure to submit their beneficial ownership details (via Irish Independent) www.independent.ie/business/alm...

Anti-corruption champion sent to UK offshore haven amid secrecy concerns Foreign Office sending Margaret Hodge to British Virgin Islands to investigate slow progress against financial crime

Dame Margaret Hodge, the UK's anti-corruption champion, is being dispatched to the British Virgin Islands to challenge authorities there on their glacial progress towards promised beneficial ownership transparency reforms www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...

11,500 UK companies struck off Companies House register after crackdown Thousands of UK companies have been removed from the Companies House register over the last year, following a crackdown coordinated by the National Economic Crime Centre.

11,500 UK companies struck off Companies House register after crackdown (via National Crime Agency) www.nationalcrimeagency.gov.uk/news/11-500-...

Announcing FollowTheMoney 4.0 This week, we are releasing version 4.0 of the FollowTheMoney (FtM) toolchain.

We’ve published an updated, improved and more deeply documented version of the data model and core data validation stack that drives OpenSanctions. Read more on our blog: www.opensanctions.org/articles/202...

Who’s really behind the world’s fishing vessels?

UBO transparency reveals the individuals behind fishing operations — a vital step in ending illegal fishing and improving ocean governance.

Read our UBO policy brief:
globalfishingwatch.org/ultimate-ben...

Announcement from St Helena on the launch of its publicly accessible beneficial ownership register www.sainthelena.gov.sh/2025/public-...

Parliamentary statement by Stephen Doughty MP on implementation of beneficial ownership registers by the UK Overseas Territories reveals that St Helena and the Turks & Caicos Islands have launched new registers just in the last few days questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-stat...

Broken promises and missing deadlines must have consequences.

Hugely disappointing that the BVI and other Overseas Territories have missed yet another deadline to tackle economic crime with accessible corporate registers.

1/3

Oh dear. These beneficial ownership changes seem to have been put on hold following consultations with industry and discussions with government in Jersey... www.jerseyfsc.org/news-and-eve...

Building a Transparent Future with Open Data, AI, and the Legal Entity Identifier - GLEIF Blog - News & Media – GLEIF Money laundering poses a systemic and seemingly intractable threat to the global economy. Despite public demand for greater corporate transparency and…

Building a Transparent Future with Open Data, AI, and the Legal Entity Identifier - meet the new members of the Global Open Data Integration Network, a joint initiative from the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation and @openownership.bsky.social www.gleif.org/en/newsroom/... #LEI #opendata

Beneficial Ownership - Entity Resolution & Knowledge Graphs Listen as Stephen Abbott Pugh & Paco Nathan discuss the challenges and opportunities of working with beneficial ownership data.

A real pleasure to join @pacoid.bsky.social for Senzing's #GraphPowerHour podcast to talk about how knowledge graphs offer solutions to support complex real-world beneficial ownership investigations senzing.com/beneficial-o... #beneficialownership #openstandards #UBO #knowledgegraphs

🚨 ⏰ ❌ Last night, the British Virgin Islands failed to meet its own deadline for opening up its corporate registers.

🖋️ ✉️ So our Chair @joepowell.bsky.social led a group of MPs in sending a letter to the BVI Premier this morning. This follows a letter we sent 5 months ago.
1/2

British offshore centres pledged over six years ago to reveal company owners — but still haven't delivered.

These delays keep the UK’s backdoor open to dirty money and clash with David Lammy’s pledge to end the ‘golden age of money laundering’.

Beneficial Ownership - Entity Resolution & Knowledge Graphs Listen as Stephen Abbott Pugh & Paco Nathan discuss the challenges and opportunities of working with beneficial ownership data.

A real pleasure to join @pacoid.bsky.social for Senzing's #GraphPowerHour podcast to talk about how knowledge graphs offer solutions to support complex real-world beneficial ownership investigations senzing.com/beneficial-o... #beneficialownership #openstandards #UBO #knowledgegraphs

Using Company Information Data for Research, Reform, and Accountability

Transparent company and beneficial ownership registers are essential tools in the fight against financial crime.

A new blog from @openownership.bsky.social explores trends and persistent challenges uncovered in the second edition of #TheGDB.

Read it now: globaldatabarometer.org/2025/06/usin...

An open solution for interoperability: The launch of version 0.4 of the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard Open Ownership launches a new version of the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard (BODS), an open solution for interoperability.

One year ago, version 0.4 of the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard was launched offering an enhanced open solution for interoperability of beneficial ownership information www.openownership.org/en/blog/an-o...

Documentation: standard.openownership.org

#beneficialownership #openstandards

The BVI’s plan for its company register ‘not compatible’ with global transparency efforts, warn anti-corruption campaigners

The BVI’s grey listing should have prompted more transparency efforts - but instead its proposal for corporate registers falls woefully short of international standards and previous commitments.

Our statement 👉 www.transparency.org.uk/news/bvis-pl...

Final draft of FFD4 Outcome Document on beneficial ownership transparency: "We will implement effective domestic beneficial ownership registries with high quality and standardised information, consistent with international standards" financing.desa.un.org/post-news/fi...

#beneficialownership #FfD4

See @transparencyuk.bsky.social's earlier consultation response raising their concerns about BVI register access plans for more background www.transparency.org.uk/publications...

More bad news:

• The registrar will still alert company reps that someone wants to look at the beneficial ownership information relating to their entity and will give them five days to object
• New access regime won't be in place till 1st April 2026