This article investigates the patterns of business ownership in Europe, using a unique dataset on the nationality of 28.7 million shareholders of companies registered in 41 European countries. By means of an exploratory multivariate analysis, it tests whether ownership links between different countries are driven exclusively by social and macroeconomic variables – such as trade or geographical or cultural proximity – or are also related to measures of financial secrecy, corruption and lack of compliance with anti-money laundering regulations. The results indicate that factors other than licit economic incentives explain the international ownership structure of European companies. European firms have an abnormal number (that is, above the predicted value) of owners from tax havens and countries with poor financial transparency, which may suggest the use of holding companies for money laundering and tax evasion and to conceal illicit financial flows. However, ceteris paribus, the number of owners is abnormal in countries where rule of law and the control of corruption are more effective, suggesting that a high level of corruption may be a cost in money laundering activities. The findings contribute to the current international debate on illicit financial flows – as framed by United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 16.4 – and can be used by public agencies and private actors to detect anomalies in business ownership and prevent potential financial crime schemes at corporate level.

本文使用一个独特的数据集来调查欧洲企业所有权的模式，该数据集涉及在41个欧洲国家注册的公司的2870万股东的国籍。通过探索性多变量分析，它可以测试不同国家之间的所有权联系是否仅由社会和宏观经济变量（例如贸易或地理或文化接近性）驱动，还是与金融保密性，腐败和对债务不遵守情况的衡量方法有关反洗钱法规。结果表明，除了合法经济激励措施以外的其他因素也可以解释欧洲公司的国际所有权结构。欧洲公司的避税天堂和财务透明度较差的国家/地区的所有者数量异常高（即高于预期值），这可能建议利用控股公司进行洗钱和逃税并掩盖非法资金流动。然而，ceteris paribus，在法治和腐败控制更为有效的国家中，所有者人数异常，这表明高水平的腐败行为可能是洗钱活动的代价。调查结果有助于当前有关非法资金流动的国际辩论（如联合国可持续发展目标16.4所述），公共机构和私人行为者可利用这些发现来发现企业所有权异常，并在公司层面预防潜在的金融犯罪计划。