CAcert Organisation Assurance Program sub-policy
for countriers in Europe
with a national Trade Office Register

Author: Teus Hagen
Creation date: 2008-05-01
Status: WiP 2008-05-02
Next status: DRAFT 2008

0. Preliminaries

This CAcert sub-policy extends the Organisation Assurance Policy ("OAP") by specifying how Organisation Assurance is to be conducted by the assigned Organisation Assurer ("OA") under the supervision of the Organisation Assurance Officer ("OAO") for entities within the defined scope.

1. Scope

This sub-policy is applicable to organisations registered with the Trade Office Registry as tabled in paragraph 3.1 of this sub-policy:

1. Legal entities in the European Union and other European countries:
   
   1. Government Bodies & Instrumentalities;
   2. Private Owned Companies;
   3. Limited Companies;
   4. Clubs, Societies & Associations;
   5. Cooperations and mutual safeguarding Societies;
   6. Foundations;
   7. Sole Trader or Professional;
   8. Partnerships: Trade, Silent Partnership, Free Profession;
   9. Churches/Religious Groups.
2. European legal entities: European Economic Collaboration (EESV), European Limited Company (SE), European Cooperation (SCE).
3. Foreign legal entities subjected to foreign jurisdiction but active in mainly in the EU country. The entity has registration duties in the EU (fin. year report, extract foreign TRO, accountant report. E.g. Private Limited Company (Ltd) in UK foreign jurisdiction but mainly active in an EU country.

2. Requirements

This section describes any scope specific requirements that are not otherwise defined in the OAP.

2.1 Organisation

1. For Applicants with individual liability operating under their own name business name registration is optional. These Applicants can be assured as company (Trade Office Registration is required) and/or as individual: CAcert Assurance Programme.
2. Applicants must be a valid legal entity but may have an arbitrary number of registered trading names.

2.2 Records

2.3 Application Form

1. The licensing authority must be specified where applicable.
   This is optional for sole traders, sole professionals and partnerships operating under their own name(s): CAcert Assurance Programme.
2. The registry Identifier must be specified where applicable.
   This is optional for sole traders and partnerships operating under their own name(s): CAcert Assurance Programme.

3. Registration

3.1 Trade Office Registries

Organisation accepted for Assurance under this policy is an organisation or entity registered with a national operating formal Trade Office Registry in the country, as tabled in Appendix I (Trade Office Registries in EU countries and other European countries).

The criteria for adding a country and the national Trade Office Registry:

1. The Trade Office Registry follows the trade office model, in which the trade office is a formal authority for registering legal entities (not individuals).
2. The Trade Office Registry is a formal entity under national (European) law.
3. The Trade Office Registry is defined in the table of Appendix I.
4. The Trade Office Registry has a reliable search facility service. The service may carry costs which are reimbursed from the organisation applicant.
5. The Trade Office Registry provides an Extract of the registration, providing location, type of organisation, full name of the organisation, directors with signature power and their signature structure, organisation registration "Identification" number.
6. Any entity which has a registration extract from the trade office is accepted.

3.2 Domain Registrars

Every European country has a Domain Registrar for the ccTLD country code under which a company domain may have a domain registration. Domain registration of a organisation domain is checked with national Domain Registry via whois and other means.

3.2 Registry Identifiers

1. Trade Office Registration Identifier, a unique registration number obtained from the Trade Office Registry.

3.3 Documents

1. The Extract from the Trade Office Registry.

4. Processes

4.1 Assurance

1. Each person listed in an application must be individually assured and referenced by a confirmed email.
2. All entities must be verified by a office trade registry search.
3. Partnership applicants must additionally be verified via an Extract as a current individual member and should be a managing partner.
4. Company applications must be made by an individual who is duly authorised to sign on behalf of the company:
   1. Officeholder Applicants (directors or preferably secretary) must be verified in an "Extract" (obtained from the Trade Office Registry by the OA where fees are reclaimable from the applicant).
   2. Any other Applicant must prove that they are duly authorised to sign on behalf of the entity (for example via delegation and/or under company rules) to the satisfaction of the OA, for approval by the OA Officer.

Appendix I

Table of accepted Trade Office Registries for EU countries

The green dot • denotes an accepted registry. The orange dot• denotes a registry being accepted. The red dot • denotes a registry awaiting feedback from that country to be accepted for company registration extracts.

Table of accepted Trade Office Registries for other European countries

The green dot • denotes an accepted registry. The orange • denotes a registry being accepted. The red dot • denotes a registry awaiting feedback from that country to be accepted for company registration extracts.

Accompanied information
Not part of CAcert Organisation Assurance Program sub-policy definition

The provided information in this part is for reference information only.

National acts on digital signatures

Comment:
The legal requirement is that there is sufficient evidense and trust. This is the case for a digital certificate that can be checked.

Digital Signatures may be accepted under implementation of EU European Directive 99/93/EG and EU national act:

Table with country top level domain registries