The Promises and Pitfalls of Mandated Ownership Transparency: A Discussion of

Abstract

Amberger, Wilde, and Wu (2025, AWW) examine the impact of EU beneficial ownership transparency (BOT) regulation on cross-border investment. They find that BOT is associated with reductions in investments from non-EU financial havens into the EU and that BOT unintentionally discourages legitimate investments without deterring illicit actors. My discussion evaluates AWW’s evidence, positions the paper within the existing literature, and discusses its contributions. I particularly focus on challenges in measuring illicit activities and the impact of voluntary FDI data reporting by EU countries. I also assess how privacy concerns and recent legal decisions have shaped the evolving landscape of beneficial ownership mandates and how they may affect the public scrutiny mechanism going forward. To contextualize the paper’s findings, I provide new survey evidence on private firms’ disclosure practices and interview-based insights into the practical use of BOT registries. I conclude with suggestions for future research.