      development has reflected the complexity of the business register domain across Europe.
     For reasons of history and constitutional structure, Member States have chosen different
     approaches to the registration of companies and compliance with the First Company law
     Directive.  has adapted to the complexity of that environment and, as progress on the SPE
     has shown, it is difficult but essential to cater for these differences.

     In the Green Paper the Commission raised the possibility of the establishment of a service by all
     registers of a web service providing a limited data set from the registers. The new  platform
     is based on web services and will provide a minimum data set. However it is the experience of
 that as the network expands the amount of data that benefits from shared definitions
diminishes. It is essential to cater for the diversity of data being issued by registers;  3.0
provides for that complexity. Business registers operate on national charging regimes based on
well established rules. An open free service would provide problems for a number of registers.

Notwithstanding the harmonization of laws as set out in the company law directives, business
registers have a heterogenous set of legal structures and histories. The establishment of a single
legal entity capable of meeting the resulting requirements of the various bodies has been
difficult. There is currently no identified legal vehicle which is capable of catering better for this
diversity. EULIS, (http://www.eulis.org/), the parallel organization dealing with access to
national land registers has decided to use the EEIG legal structure. EUMETNET,
 the Conference of the European National Meteorological Services,
operates under an agreement between those services supported by a secretariat established as a
G.I.E/EIG.

 strongly believes that a network of business registers such as the  is necessary for the
implementation of certain company law initiatives within the European Internal Market. With
the new BR-to-BR communications, it will be necessary to put in place the appropriate legal
framework to give recognition and legal value to the information exchanged.

 considers, however, that considerable progress can be made in the meantime by agreement
with, and recommendations from, the Commission, for example that the remaining Member
States should direct their official registers to join the network, implement the basic BR-to-BR
services, and adopt the standards for the identification of registers and companies.

 agrees that certain aspects of the proposed interaction will require regulation by governance
agreement. Such an agreement would be greatly strengthened by being given recognition by an
EU legal instrument such as a directive. This would bring legal clarity and a requirement for full
EU coverage.

With reference to the Transparency Directive (2004/109/EC), we consider that a unique access
point to provide the financial information available at the registries would be beneficial for the
stakeholders and the purpose of a central storage mechanism.

 strongly supports the cooperation and direct link between the electronic network set up by
the Transparency Directive for the storage of regulated information on listed companies and the
 centralized service providing access to the EU Member States companies registers. Some
time ago the  offered its services to CESR in permitting this access to BR data and is willing
to continue those discussions.

The use of  for BR-to-BR communications will be very cost effective and will build upon
investments already made. Once the next version of the  platform is in place it will be
capable of managing the required BR-to-BR messaging at little additional cost.

Progressing the current activities in respect of branches could bring major savings for businesses.
In addition, costs can be saved for registers and, in accordance with well established legal
principles, all such savings must revert to companies.

In accordance with the BRITE agreements, as  was the contractor for the components of
the BRITE project being brought forward to  3.0, it holds the right to the use of those
services.  however proposes to use that knowledge for the benefit of the business registers.

All of the preliminary research has been done on cross border mergers and transfer of seat.
Already the Luxembourg working party is convened to progress this work in cooperation with
the .  therefore considers that Option 1) as set out by the Commission is the most
appropriate for the cases described by the Paper. A network of business registers such as the
 is best placed to implement and exploit the results of the BRITE project. With the
completion of the coverage of the EU Member States and the consolidation of certain legal and
technical issues,  will have complete coverage in all the relevant business registers. Note also
that companies transfer seat already to Member States from non-EU jurisdictions and that such
transfers can be supported by .

As is stated in the Green Paper, IMI and  have different purposes and functionality. The
automated platform of the  is capable of handling services such as the Branch Disclosure
Service without human intervention. That service generates tens of thousands of queries nightly
on the home registers and enables the automatic update of the host registers.  will provide
and support the platform tools, such as the Central Names Index, the Directory of Registers and
the REID company identification system, that have been deemed essential components of a
working BR-to-BR network. As far as we are aware the IMI service is not designed to support
such services and hence meet the objectives set out in the Green Paper.
The , like the registries themselves, works with publicly available data. As the  develops
BR-to-BR communications, it will be possible to integrate services seamlessly into the public
interface. For example, as the BDS identifies the home registration of companies on the register
of the branch, it would not be technically difficult to show publicly on the home register the
branches set up by a company. Such data would then be in the public domain and not stored in a
dynamic and transitory message exchange environment.

 does not however see a conflict between the IMI environment and  services.  is
happy to support IMI in its interface with business registers in the same way as it will work with
e-Justice in providing information to the judicial and legal systems.

The use of  for BR-to-BR communications will be very cost effective and will build upon
investments already made. Once the next version of the  platform is in place it will be
capable of managing the required BR-to-BR messaging at little additional cost at the network
level. Costs within registries would also be lower where the register has established the internal
connections to the messaging systems.

 agrees with the Commission Paper on the need to cater for a legal basis and regulation for
the cooperation between Members States on the foreign companies Branch Disclosure.

Apart from the activities identified in the Commission's paper we must reflect on more advanced
concepts such as the recommendation in the SLIM initiative that the Eleventh Company law
Directive should be altered to provide that the registration of a branch should take place on the
register where the company is registered, and that no further registration should be necessary in
the jurisdiction where the company establishes the branch. It is understood that that proposal
was not brought forward because the technological infrastructure was not in place to support
proper control and disclosure. The adoption of  as the BR-to-BR connection would resolve
that problem, at least from a technological point of view.

 was associated with a meeting of the Commission's Company Law Experts Group in
September 2009. From that meeting we drew the encouraging conclusion that the vast majority
of Member States, and their experts, having given the matter considerable consideration in the
light of the excellent work done by the Commission, were of the opinion that  work on
deploying the conclusions of the BRITE project should be continued and adopted as the EU
approach.


ACCEPTS the need to establish a standardized and legally valid solution for cross border
        cooperation between business registers across Europe as required in the relevant EU
        directives and otherwise;

COMMITS TO participation in a process for the identification and implementation of
        the necessary actions, including the creation of a standardized and secure messaging
        environment; to the early establishment of a directory within which business registers
        will be properly identified and the use of a uniform company identification system; to
        working with existing projects; to the establishment and identification of the relevant
        authorities and institutions to undertake the agreed actions and

to have a fully functioning infrastructure in place by January 1, 2012.

What is inherent in the Conference conclusions, unanimously agreed by the participants, is that
there are different roles and tasks to be performed and that the appropriate authorities need to be
identified to perform those roles and task. It is not a matter of establishing or identifying a single
institutional structure governing laws, messages to be exchanged and technologies. Different
roles will be played by different authorities bringing to bear different expertise and institutional
strengths. That is in complete accord with the approach being taken by the  in carrying
forward the BRITE recommendations.

 acknowledges that certain matters require an enhanced legal foundation. Business registers
must be able to issue and accept documents from other registers on the basis that they have full
legal effect.

 considers that it is logical to build on earlier political commitments. The  was initially
established by the European Commission as part of the European Nervous System (ENS) within
the Third Framework Program of Research and Technological Development. At the
conclusion of the initial research phase, it was continued and expanded by the registries
themselves.  is by far the greatest success to emerge from the ENS investment by the
Commission. ENS was established to create links between administrations; as far as we can
determine  is the only surviving network established from that process. While its coverage is
not complete it is undoubtedly one of the most comprehensive voluntary intergovernmental
telecommunications networks of its type in existence.

Having been established by the European Commission it is established  policy to work
towards recognition of its activities and role.

The European Business Register dedicates itself to the furtherance of the Internal Market in
accordance with the principles set out in the Commission Green Paper and Progress Report. We
do that strengthened with domain expertise and appropriate technologies. In support of the
business registers we seek solutions that avoid duplication of effort and cost.