2. Business Registers In Europe > 16 Million companies Almost all registries rely for existence on fees –Pay to register –Pay for changes –Pay to see information Very significant IT investment

3. EU Laws on BR cost recovery Filing –may not produce a surplus; the registry may not be a tax on raising capital (Capital Taxes Directive) Retrieval –<= the “administrative cost thereof” (1st Company Law Directive) –Some free data coming (new directive on inter-registry links) Re-use –<= the cost of collection, production, reproduction and dissemination, together with a reasonable return on investment. (2003 Directive on re-use)

4. Who pays? Business Startups Data Users

5. Where costs lie Collection Enforcement Quality Control Retrieval IT Systems

6. Diversity of systems Judges Courts Lawyers Administrative Private Notaries Chambers

7. Registries and Open Data Some jurisdictions are moving towards an open-data model –UK Public Data Group and others Simple rules will have different results in different locations for the same information This is not a good time to ask Governments to pay the fixed costs