KIEV, June 1 - Ukraine has taken a step in the fight against corporate secrecy and corruption by agreeing to share data on who ultimately owns and controls Ukrainian companies, Transparency International and the government reported on Thursday.

Transparency International Ukraine, the government and the Open Ownership consortium recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to integrate Ukraine’s beneficial ownership information into the Open Ownership global register.

Ukraine’s national beneficial ownership data will now be automatically linked to data from other countries and made available to the global public for free.

Justice Minister Pavlo Petrenko said it was an important step to fight corruption.

“We set the ambitious goal to ensure transparency and openness of all processes of our country,” Petrenko said.

A beneficial owner is the real person who ultimately owns, controls or benefits from a company or trust fund and the income it generates.

Shedding light on who really owns companies is a key defense for stopping corruption. This information helps to prevent the corrupt from being able to hide ill-gotten gains behind layers of corporate secrecy, and makes it easier to track the flows of illicit funds across borders.

The move is especially important in light of events in 2014 when former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych fled Ukraine leaving behind documents that showed how he was able to enjoy a life of luxury at the expense of his citizens.

Using nominees as frontmen in a complex web of shell companies from Vienna to London to Lichtenstein, Yanukovych allegedly concealed his involvement in the siphoning off of at least $350 million of Ukrainian public funds for his personal benefit.

After Yanukovych fled, TI Ukraine and five other organizations produced a road map to reform the Ukrainian legal framework in order to end the alleged abuses of power that characterized the ousted regime.

Open Ownership collects all available public beneficial ownership information into one central platform. This is the first public, global beneficial ownership register in the world, making it easier to understand corporate ownership chains by connecting the dots between people and companies across jurisdictions.

José Ugaz, Chair of Transparency International who signed the agreement on behalf of Open Ownership, praised Ukraine.

“Opening the data is a global trend, which negates most of the risks of corruption,” Ugaz said. (nr/ez)