The registers a foreign company needs to read

One of the more genuinely useful things about doing business in Ukraine is that the basic due diligence a company would pay for elsewhere can largely be done from a desk, because the registers are open.

The registers that matter

The unified state register of legal entities: the company's registered details, directors, share capital, registered address, and — importantly — its ultimate beneficial owners. A counterparty that has not filed its beneficial ownership is telling you something.

The register of property rights: who owns a building or a plot, and what encumbrances sit on it. A mortgage or an arrest on the property is visible.

The land cadastre, which shows the parcel, its designated use and its boundaries — essential when the deal involves land.

The unified register of court decisions, which is fully public and searchable. You can read what a company has litigated, against whom and how it went.

And the register of enforcement proceedings, showing unpaid judgments outstanding against a party.

How to read them together

Individually each is a data point. Together they produce a picture: a company with recent ownership changes, several enforcement proceedings and a mortgaged office is telling a consistent story before anybody has met.

The caution

Registers show what has been registered. An unregistered lease, an oral arrangement or a claim not yet filed will not appear, and a clean register is a starting point rather than a conclusion.

Why this is worth saying

Because foreign companies frequently commission expensive reports containing information they could have obtained themselves in an afternoon.

I run this check on every new counterparty and it takes under an hour: ownership, debt, litigation and whether they actually operate. Reading the four together is what matters — none of them is sufficient alone and together they produce a picture. It is worth saying because this information is open and free, and most of those who run into trouble never looked.