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, Commanditair, 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 jusrisdiction 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 Registrar in the country, as tabled in Appendix I (Trade Office Registrars in EU countries and other European countries).

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

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

3.2 Domain Registries

Every European country has a Domain Registry for the ccTLD country code under which a company domain can be registrated with. Domain registration of a organisation domain is checked with national Domain Registry via whois.

A table with an overview of different countries and their country top domain registrars is defined in Appendix III.

3.2 Registry Identifiers

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

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 registrar 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 Registrar 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 Registrars for EU countries

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

Table of accepted Trade Office Registrars for other European countries

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

Appendix II

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:

Appendix III

Table with country top level domain registrars