Regulatory desk
The obligations that arrive without an invoice.
ESR, UBO, AML and the licensing paperwork nobody is assigned to until a renewal is blocked or a penalty lands. We hold the calendar for all of it.
- Filings tracked
- ESR, UBO, AML, licence
- Registers
- Maintained year-round
- goAML
- Registration and reporting
- Reminders
- Sent before, not after
Who this is for
If nobody in the business owns these dates.
These filings carry real penalties and no invoice to remind you they are due. That is precisely why they are the ones that get missed.
Ask what applies to you- Entities within scope of Economic Substance Regulations
- Companies that have never filed a UBO register
- Businesses in a designated non-financial sector
- Groups setting up or licensing a new entity
- Owners winding a company down properly
- Anyone whose licence renewal was held up
How the engagement runs
Four stages, then it runs on a calendar
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Scope
What applies
Licence, activity and ownership reviewed to establish which regimes you are genuinely in scope for.
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Catch up
Clear the backlog
Missed filings brought current, with penalty exposure quantified before anything is submitted.
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File
Submit and register
Notifications, reports and registers filed on the relevant portal, with confirmations kept on file.
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Hold
Keep the calendar
Every recurring date tracked on our side, with a reminder to you well before the window closes.
Scope of work
What the engagement covers
Charged annually per entity, so a group with six licences knows what the whole compliance calendar costs.
- Economic Substance notifications and reports
- UBO registers and filings
- AML policies and goAML registration
- Company formation and licensing
- Corporate secretarial support
- Liquidation and deregistration
Inside this line
What sits under Corporate & Regulatory Services
8 services on this desk. Most engagements use two or three of them.
goAML Registration & Reporting
Registration, and the reports once you are on it
Ask about thisCompany Formation & Business Setup
Licence, structure and bank account, in order
Ask about thisCorporate Secretarial Services
Registers, resolutions and minutes kept current
Ask about thisTrade License & Regulatory Compliance
Renewals and the conditions attached to them
Ask about thisCorporate Amendments & Regulatory Filings
Share transfers, activity changes and filings
Ask about thisCompany Liquidation & Deregistration
Closing properly, so nothing follows you
Ask about this
Event-driven, not annual
The filings that start without warning
ESR, UBO and AML obligations are usually described as annual. Several are not: a shareholder change, a new activity or a licence amendment starts a clock the same week it happens.
We hold the register and watch the triggers, so the filing follows the event rather than the anniversary.
Register reviewed Quarterly, and on every corporate change
The UBO chain
The register wants a person, not a company
The most common rejection we see is a UBO declared at the corporate layer. The register wants the individual at the end of the ownership chain, with identification, however many holding companies sit in between.
Where the chain runs offshore we map it before filing rather than after a rejection, because the second attempt is always slower than the first.
Before filing
What every regulatory submission needs
These filings are refused more often for missing attachments than for wrong answers.
- Trade licence and any amendments
- Memorandum and shareholder register
- Passport and Emirates ID for each UBO
- Corporate shareholder chain to the individual
- Board resolutions authorising the filing
- Existing portal credentials, where they exist
Where it goes wrong
Three things we are asked to fix most
Not theory. These are the ones that arrive as a problem rather than a question.
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01
Assuming the filing is annual
Several of these are event-driven: a shareholder change starts a clock the same week.
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02
UBO stated at the corporate layer
The register wants the individual at the end of the chain, not the holding company.
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03
AML policy copied from a template
A policy that does not describe your customers or your products is treated as no policy.
Questions we get weekly
Regulatory filings, answered plainly.
It depends on whether you were in scope at all, which is the first thing to establish. Many entities file notifications they never needed to, and some that needed to have never heard of it.
Usually yes. Dormancy removes very little of the obligation set, and a dormant entity that files nothing for years is a common source of accumulated penalties.
Not cleanly. Those usually have to be resolved or formally challenged first, which is why liquidations often start on the disputes desk before reaching this one.
Related
Usually engaged alongside
Talk to the regulatory desk
Send us your trade licence. We will list what you owe and when.
One page, showing every recurring filing your entity is in scope for and the date each falls due. No charge.