ACRA Consults on Legislative Changes for Enhancing Transparency of Beneficial Ownership, Addressing Data Privacy & Digitalisation

The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (“ACRA“) is conducting a public consultation to seek comments on changes to the legislation governing the business entities regulated by ACRA to achieve the following broad objectives:

• Provide ACRA with greater flexibility in the collection, sharing and usage of personal data;
• Strike a balance between corporate transparency and personal data privacy;
• Make filing with ACRA more convenient;
• Facilitate Government-to-Business digital correspondence;
• Enhance transparency of beneficial ownership of companies and limited liability partnerships (“LLPs“) in order to reduce the chances of Singapore business entities being used for illicit purposes;
• Standardise and consolidate service of summons and other civil originating process under the Acts administered by ACRA;
• Streamline and clarify the striking-off regime for companies, foreign companies, variable capital companies and LLPs.

In this Update, we highlight the key proposals in this consultation that may be of pertinence to businesses.

The consultation exercise ends on 28 January 2022.