Swiss Parliament approves final draft of New Data Protection Act On 25 September 2020, the Swiss Parliament approved the final draft of the revised Data Protection Act (rev-DPA), with the aim to modernise its data protection laws and align it to the latest EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The rev-DPA could still be subject...Read More

      Switzerland suspends AEOI with Bulgaria During its meeting on 20 September 2019, the Federal Council decided to immediately suspend the automatic exchange of financial account information (AEOI) with Bulgaria due to a problem with the country’s data security. The systems and databases of Swiss tax administrations and financial institutions are not affected...Read More

OECD, 30 August 2019 – The information technology system of the National Revenue Agency (NRA) of Bulgaria was hacked and a significant amount of its data was provided to the media on 15 July 2019. Bulgaria subsequently confirmed that this data was from NRA systems and that it included data automatically exchanged with international treaty...Read More

Malta has incorporated certain provisions of the EU Fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive into its beneficial ownership registration regulations. From 1 January 2020, any person can inspect the name, month and year of birth, nationality, country of residence and the extent and nature of the beneficial interest of the beneficial owners of a company, without having...Read More

Ireland’s central register of beneficial ownership of companies was officially launched on 29 July, after a postponement allowing certain clarifications to be made regarding beneficial owners’ personal public services (PPS) numbers. Companies that existed before 22 June 2019 must report their beneficial ownership information to the registrar before 22 November 2019, while those formed after...Read More