31 st Conference of European CivilLaw Notaries Interconnection

31 st Conference of European Civil-Law Notaries Interconnection and Quality Salla Saastamoinen, Director of the Directorate for Civil and commercial justice, Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers, European Commission

Interconnection and Quality 1) Quality of justice – ‘connection’ between courts and citizens/parties/lawyers 2) Interconnection between systems 3) Ensuring quality for interconnection

EU Justice Scoreboard • a comparative information tool • aims to assist the Member States to improve the effectiveness of their national justice systems • provides objective, reliable and comparable data on the quality, independence and efficiency of justice systems

EU Justice Scoreboard: Quality • Focus on factors that can help improve the quality of justice systems: § easy access to justice § adequate resources § effective assessment tools § appropriate standards

Interconnection between national systems • Business Register Interconnection System (BRIS) • Interconnection of national insolvency registers (IRI) • Interconnection of national land registers • E-CODEX

Business Register Interconnection System (BRIS)

Future use case: interconnection of beneficial ownership registers • Transparency as important element of global anti-money laundering rules • Member States required to set up national registers on beneficial owners of companies by 10 January 2020 and of trusts by 10 March 2020 • Interconnection of beneficial ownership information for legal entities and trusts via BRIS by 10 March 2021

Interconnection of national insolvency registers (IRI)

Interconnection of Land Registers (LRI)

The e-CODEX system • e-CODEX - an interoperable, decentralized and secure system for cross-border data exchanges (can support different procedures) • Allows participants to easily interlink their existing or future national systems across borders • Consists of an e. Delivery building block component and the “e-CODEX connector” which provides additional features (i. a. e. Signature verification). Both components are free of charge.

The e-CODEX system (2) • Presently used in the piloting of two civil law instruments – European Payment Order and European Small Claims Procedure • Citizens and courts are able to submit forms and supporting documents in a matter of seconds • The e-Justice Portal will also provide an access point to the e-CODEX network • e-CODEX also supports the e-Evidence digital exchange system in the criminal law field

Future use cases • Proposed Regulation on service of documents • Taking of evidence • E-evidence scheme

Ensuring quality in the interconnection • Provide transparency and cross-border access to information • Define minimum standards on data • Ensure quality of information • Provide full multilingual support in the official EU languages.

Cross-border access to information

Minimum standards on data (The BRIS example – Directive (EU) 2017/1132) • Member States already ensure that the following company information is available free of charge via BRIS: • Company name • Legal form • Registered office and Member State • Registration number • Any further documents and particulars that Member States want to make available free of charge.

Minimum standards on data (2) (The new Company Law Package) • About disqualified directors • About changes of information on companies ‒ for the registers of branches abroad ‒ Once Only Principle

Minimum standards on data (3) (The new Company Law Package) • More company information, free of charge, for authorities of other Member States - Object of the company (where available) - Company website (where available) • More information, free of charge, for the general public - Legal status of the company (e. g. closed, struck off) - Persons authorised to represent the company - Information on branches

Full multilingual support – EU languages

Interconnections - Notaries • EUFides • ARERT • European Directory of Notaries

• Thank you for your attention