Court voids EUR 600 UBO fine as time-barred from 2019 deadline

Vilniaus apygardos teismas has dismissed the Centre of Registers' appealTeismai and left in force a first-instance ruling that annulled a EUR 600 fineTeismai imposed on a company manager for late filing of beneficial-ownership dataTeismai, in ruling No. eAN2-359-898/2026 of 16 September 2026 by Judge Jurgita Kolyčienė. The court agreed that the two-year penalty limit under Article 39 of the Code of Administrative Offences had expiredTeismai.

The underlying facts were not in dispute. S. S., manager of a Lithuanian private limited company (UAB) since 16 January 2017, failed to submit the company's beneficial-ownership information to the JADIS administrator in timeTeismai. The Centre of Registers drew up the offence report on 30 December 2025Teismai and, by a replacement decision of 20 March 2026, fined him EUR 600 under Article 223(1) of the Code of Administrative OffencesTeismai; the data reached the JANGIS subsystem on 21 January 2026. The Vilnius Region District Court (Šalčininkai chamber) annulled the fine on 15 June 2026 as time-barredTeismaiTeismai; the Centre of Registers appealed.

The appeal turned on one question: from when the two-year limit runs for this continuing offence. Article 39 allows a penalty no later than two years after the offence was committed, or, for a continuing offence, within two years of the day it came to light (paaiškėjimo diena)E TAR. The Centre of Registers argued the clock started on 30 December 2025, the day of its inspection and report, because the missing data still had not been filed then.

The appellate court rejected that readingTeismai. The initial filing duty arose under Article 2(4) of the 2017 anti-money-laundering amending lawTeismai: all Lithuanian legal entities (except those whose sole participant is the state or a municipality) had to file with the JADIS administrator by 1 July 2019Teismai; later changes within 10 days. Since that deadline was never extendedTeismai and no new one was setTeismai, the performance period expired on 1 July 2019Teismai — and the court held the Register Centre, which administers JADIS itself and has constant direct access to its data under points 10.4 and 10.11 of the JADIS regulations, must react within a reasonable time rather than keep liability open indefinitely by pointing to the day it inspected its own registerTeismai. The court relied on the Supreme Court of Lithuania's ruling of 10 March 2026 in case No. 2AT-10-495/2026Teismai: holding a person liable for breach of a duty whose deadline expired on 1 July 2019 is incompatible with realising liability within a reasonable timeTeismai.

The court added that the Supreme Court case law the Centre invoked on the detection moment concerned different offences — unauthorised use of state land, unauthorised construction — whose commission is not apparent without complaints or inspections, unlike a missing filing in a register the Centre itself administers. Second, the penalty decision was internally contradictory: it invoked three provisions together that set different deadlines for different situations (initial filing by 1 July 2019 versus 10 days for changed data)Teismai, while the file contained no evidence that the company's beneficial owners had changedTeismai — leaving it unclear which deadline the manager had missed.

The ruling is final on publicationTeismai: the appeal is dismissedTeismai and the 15 June 2026 first-instance ruling standsTeismai. For managers and advisers, the signal is that fines for long-overdue initial filings face a serious limitation defence more than two years after 1 July 2019 — though the ruling decides only the penalty time bar. Legal basis: Lietuvos Respublikos administracinių nusižengimų kodekso 39 straipsnis and 223 straipsnio 1 dalis, and the anti-money-laundering law's 25 straipsnio 1 dalis with its 2017 amending law (Nr. XIII-568) 2 straipsnio 4 dalis.