Last week was a big step forward in the history of open company data, with the formation of the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation, which will oversee the global system of Legal Entity Identifiers, and ensure that the system is run in the public interest, carrying out the G20 Recommendations that set up the system. The … Continue reading Global Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) Foundation launched
Today, OpenCorporates announces a new sister website, Open LEIs, a user-friendly interface on the emerging Global Legal Entity Identifier System. At this point many, possibly most, of you will be wondering: what on earth is the Global Legal Entity Identifier System? And that's one of the reasons why we built Open LEIs. The Global Legal Entity Identifier … Continue reading Announcing Open LEIs: a user-friendly interface to the Legal Entity Identifier system
Last month the US General Accounting Office, produced an excellent report on the use of Dun & Bradstreet's proprietary DUNS ID system by the Federal Government, specifically the GSA, its procurement and administration arm. In a fairly devastating report, it explains why the ID system was problematic: "GSA believes that Dun & Bradstreet effectively has a … Continue reading Are DUNS numbers the crack cocaine of ID systems (and is the UK the latest addict)?
We've often stated that the goal of OpenCorporates is simple (but huge): to create an openly licensed database containing every corporate legal entity in the world, and provide open URI ids for them. We base this URI on the ID issued by the company register, as this brings multiple benefits: No Monopoly ID system Because we … Continue reading Towards a global lookup service for corporate ids
Today, the day before the Open Government Partnership meeting starts in Brasilia, OpenCorporates is publishing a major new report into access to company data in OGP countries, and the picture is not good. Out of a total of a possible 100 points, the average score was just 21, with several major countries (including Spain, Greece and … Continue reading How open is company data in Open Government Partnership countries?
Last week OpenCorporates was in Basel at the Financial Stability Board's workshop on Global Legal Entity Identifiers (LEI) for corporate entities, as a member of the advisory panel. It's worth giving a sentence or two's background here for those who aren't familiar with this – and that's probably everyone who's not part of the global financial … Continue reading Corporate confidentiality, company relationships, and why this ‘competitive advantage’ is anti-competitive
We did it – last week we went over the 40 million companies mark, with the addition of our 52st jurisdiction: Mauritius. As well as being quite a significant milestone in itself, we're also using this as an excuse to replace that alpha tag that's graced the top right hand corner of OpenCorporates since we launched with … Continue reading Major milestones: 40m companies, 50+ jurisdictions, moving out of alpha, getting respectable
This weekend, the EU published its public draft of its Business Vocabulary (along with Person and Location), to help make it easier for organisations within Europe, including governments themselves, to exchange information relating to companies. Now if I haven't already lost your attention, I think this is pretty important, and not just those who handle … Continue reading 3 reasons why the EU’s new Business Vocabulary is so important
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