In that case, Latvian law provided for public access to information concerning all shareholders of a public limited liability company, including minority shareholders, for the purposes of preventing money laundering, terrorist financing, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, as well as implementing international and EU sanctions.
The legitimacy of those objectives is not, however, called into question.
In its analysis, the Court criticises the national legislation at issue for failing to provide sufficient safeguards to ensure the protection of shareholders’ personal data, as guaranteed by Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
Consistent with its proportionality review, the Court considers that those objectives can be achieved through measures that are less restrictive of fundamental rights. In this regard, it notes that the AML/CFT and counter-proliferation frameworks already require competent authorities and obliged entities to conduct customer identification, verification and monitoring measures.
As regards the objective of implementing international and EU sanctions, the Court refers to a proposal by the Commission under which publication would be limited to information relating to persons subject to sanctions measures, while access to information concerning other shareholders would be reserved to persons capable of demonstrating a legitimate interest.
What the Court condemns is therefore not transparency as such, but rather the generalised and indiscriminate nature of access to the data.
The judgment suggests that access restricted to competent authorities, obliged entities acting in the context of their due diligence obligations or persons able to demonstrate a legitimate interest would be more compatible with the requirements of Articles 7 and 8 of the Charter. This is not a novel approach. It follows the line of reasoning developed in WM and Sovim (C‑37/20 and C‑601/20), where the judges had already cast doubt on unrestricted public access to beneficial ownership registers.
The Court therefore sends a twofold message to both practitioners and national legislators.
It does not call into question the tools already available to competent authorities and obliged entities to fulfil their due diligence obligations.
The principal lesson arguably lies elsewhere: the pursuit of AML/CFT objectives or the implementation of sanctions does not, in itself, justify unrestricted public access to information. Rather, the Court points towards differentiated access regimes that take into account both the status of the applicant and the purpose for which access is sought.
This leaves a fundamental question unanswered for future transparency frameworks and compliance practitioners alike: who will be able to demonstrate the legitimate interest required to gain access to such information?
Link to the judgment of the Court of Justice of the EU of 3 September 2026 in the Jautiva case (C-798/24):
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