1. A true single market
requires open access
to public company
information
Chris Taggart, Share-PSI, May 10, Brussels

2. Me: Chris Taggart
• Developer of OpenlyLocal,
opening up local government
information since 2009. Over
150 councils, 10,000 councillors,
1.8 million payments, all open data
• Developer of OpenCharities
• Co-founder of OpenCorporates
• Member of Local Public Data Panel
• Member of London Digital Advisory
Board
• Member of Open Knowledge
Foundation open government
working group

3. Why do we register
companies?
• Non-natural persons
• Important (and powerful) role in society
• Economy depends on them
• Limited liability means the risk is carried by a
company’s customers, suppliers, and staff (and
society as a whole)

4. What information do
we hold (& why)?
• Accounts
• Registered Office
• Mortgages
• Statutory filings
• Officers (Directors)
• Owners (sometimes)
We need to: know who we’re doing dealing with;
make an informed decision about doing business with them;
& who to sue for redress

5. There’s a wealth of
other official data too
utory p urpose
Stat siness
• Official Gazettes ✓
Useful for bu
wider
✓ ed for
• Environmental notices ✓ Design
bution
distri n data
• Political contributions reasin gly ope
✓ Inc
se com pany
esn’t u
• Planning information X Do
tifiers
iden
• Court cases
• Public contracts & spending
• Other registers (e.g. financial services)

6. An efficient & (single)
market depends on it
• Access to information to all, not just big
established companies with power
• A level playing field means that ‘public’ must
mean ‘public data’, not just individual facts
• Lack of access to information restricts access to
companies outside the member country
• Existing approach leads to rent-seeking, de facto
exclusive arrangements, and reliance on non-
EU companies

7. One more thing...
• This is public information, collected for a statutory
purpose... but restricted to the public
• Wider access to essential corporate information leads
to less friction, more competition, more innovation
• Restricted access lays a fertile ground on which
corruption, fraud and tax evasion thrives
• Information about smaller companies presently isn’t
collected (or published) due to the restricted business
models of incumbent corporate data publishers
• The public sector needs this information too, to
monitor its suppliers, improve efficiency, and to avoid
its tax base disappearing