Private Company Registries in Germany & France : A Comparison

Today I would like to compare information available for SMEs from public registries from Germany and France. Germany has made available publicly a company registry, BundesAnzeiger, which is an official publication of the Federal Republic of Germany. Once you enter the database, by clicking on 'FirmenName', you will access a range of different entries. If you click on Jahresabschluss (translated as "Annual Report") on the right column you will see the last annual reports from all companies (most of them private and including of very small size). There is mostly financial information, but also information frequently disclosed about the number of employees, financial structure, subsidiaries etc. There is even sometimes some disclosures about social, environmental and ethical information (CSR). This is available for free in a very standard way and information is third party audited. Some improvements could be made on data accessibility but overall it works pretty well once you get used to practice the interface.
The France registry is Infogreffe and relies on information from local clerks.

It only allows users to check the legal status of companies. In many cases the registers are incomplete and do not contain information about employees. Access to annual reports requires a fee, which can be a little daunting when one needs to check information quickly (e.g. for investors, compliance and due diligence officers or any other stakeholders). Information from the annual report is purely financial and therefore quite limited. There is no mandatory information on disclosure regarding subsidiaries. In general, the experience is poor and this can be deplored as French citizens could expect from their government a free service that would allow more transparency from businesses in an easy , accessible way!.

All in all, the German registry is definitely a best practice in terms of open government data: free, providing comprehensive information, and transparent. This should be used as a best practice at European Union level for all members. More comparisons to come!