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12 J. Int'l & Comp. L. 117 (2025)
Transparent Corporate Beneficial Ownership in Quebec and the United Kingdom

handle is hein.journals/jintcl12 and id is 131 raw text is: TRANSPARENT CORPORATE BENEFICIAL OWNERSHIP IN QUEBEC AND THE UNITED KINGDOM Janice Denoncourt* Abstract: The use of companies to facilitate corruption, money-laundering and other illicit commercial activities has led to the enactment of new corpo- rate beneficial ownership law in many jurisdictions. Corporate governance transparency law is grounded in transparency theory to promote future ethical investment and indirectly contributes to economic advancement in society. Certain aspects of Quebec's Transparency of Enterprises Act 2023 and the United Kingdom's Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement Act) 2022 legislation are comparatively analysed in the prevailing business con- text. The research assesses the public versus private dimension of beneficial ownership information; the implications of French and Welsh language use in each jurisdiction. It also presents a novel interdisciplinary non-legal mathe- matical mechanism, applying Benford's Law to make detecting bad corporate actors more effective. The author expects the conclusions will accelerate ben- eficial ownership transparency enabling Quebec and the UK (England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland) to maintain their standing as leading jurisdictions in the fight against economic crime. Keywords: Benford's Law; bilingualism; corporate beneficial ownership transparency; Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act UK; money laundering; Transparency of Enterprises Act Quebec I. Overview of Corporate Beneficial Ownership Transparency The financial architecture underpinning corporate enterprise and governance has seen an important global trend over recent decades as countries implement cen- tralised beneficial ownership registry systems to address the difficulty in tracing beneficial ownership and control. Strong and effective corporate governance brings together the concepts of disclosure, transparency and accountability with a view to making it easier to detect bad corporate actors. As of March 2024 over 149 * J Denoncourt (BA McGill, LLB West. Australia, LLM Murdoch, LLM Bournemouth, PhD Nottingham, GAICD Sydney, SFHEA UK), Associate Professor at Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent Uni- versity, UK. Email: Janice.denoncourt@ntu.ac.uk. This paper was presented as a work-in-progress at the British Association of Canadian Studies (BACS) Annual Conference 20-23 April 2023, hosted by University College London, UK. The research was generously supported by the Prix de la Ddldgation gdndrale du Qudbec a Londres funding donated by the Quebec Government Office in London and the research assistance provided by Dr Liu Xiaocong is gratefully acknowledged. [(2025) 12:1 JICL 117-140]