Part 7 in a series on the fundamentals of legal entity identity data. Commerce is going digital. Not "paper to PDF" digital — structured, machine-executed, real-time digital. And the one thing digital commerce cannot tolerate is ambiguity about who is on the other side.
Part 6 in a series on the fundamentals of legal entity identity data. The LEI was designed to identify legal entities. It is the best identifier the world has. So why does less than 1% of the world's legal entities have one? The LEI deserves serious examination – not only because of what it gets right, which is a great deal, but because understanding where its structural constraints lie is essential to understanding what universal legal entity identification actually requires.
Part 5 in a series on the fundamentals of legal entity identity data. After fifteen years of working with company register data from over 140 jurisdictions, processing data on more than 200 million legal entities, we can say with some authority: the local company registration number, despite coming from the right source, is fundamentally limited as a basis for systematic, cross-jurisdictional identification.
Part 4 in a series on the fundamentals of legal entity identity data. You might think your company has an identifier. It probably has several. But do any of them identify the legal entity itself?
Part 3 in a series on the fundamentals of legal entity identity data. In the previous post, we saw how a legal entity comes into being: through an act of registration that doesn't merely record the entity but creates it. We saw that the register is the authoritative source – the thing that makes a legal entity real. But if the register is the source of truth, how do you prove that truth to someone else? For centuries, the answer was simple: a certificate of incorporation. That answer is now dangerously inadequate.
Part 2 in a series on the fundamentals of legal entity identity data. In the previous post, we explored what a legal entity is: a construct so foundational to modern commerce that we rarely stop to examine what it actually is. We looked at the key features that make legal entities so powerful – distinct legal personality, universal recognition, chainability, and limited liability. Now we turn to a different question: how does a legal entity actually come into being?
Part 1 in a series on the fundamentals of legal entity identity data. Think about the last time you signed a contract. If it was done in a work context, perhaps it was a supplier agreement, a SaaS subscription like Salesforce, or with a new customer. You probably focused on the terms, the obligations, the price. But behind all of those details sits a more fundamental question: who, exactly, is entering into this agreement?
While the broader fintech market prioritizes "move fast and break things" efficiency, the modern Chief Compliance Officer (CCO) faces a different reality: in this industry, when things move too fast it’s the law that gets broken. For years, compliance was often viewed as a cost center. But a structural transformation in global regulation has fundamentally changed this. Through the "Monaco Memos," the US Department of Justice (DOJ) instructed prosecutors to ensure there are no longer two sets of rules... one for corporations and executives, and another for the rest of America.
A recent investigation by The Maine Wire, titled "Rep. Yusuf Yusuf Tied in to Vast Network of Million-Dollar Somali-Run Medicaid Recipients and Money Transfers," serves as a powerful example of how open company data can be used to cross-reference official government filings and uncover complex networks.
On Tuesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made a passionate pitch for European competitiveness. Speaking on the new "EU Inc" proposal to simplify cross-border business, she offered a soundbite that was clearly meant to inspire: "If we get this right — and if we move fast enough — this will not only help EU companies grow. But it will attract investment from across the world."