LEG
Legal and governance
Voting rights, board appointment, reserved matters, trusts, mandates and formal control agreements.
UCB methodologyIdentify ultimate control
Identify ultimate control
without obscuring the evidence gap.
Tevuna distinguishes a formal UBO conclusion from an evidence-based Ultimate Controlling Beneficiary attribution.
UBO versus UCB
Two conclusions, reported separately.
Ultimate Beneficial Owner — UBO. The ultimate party identified through sufficient legal ownership, voting rights or other formal control evidence. Where the conclusion depends on ownership percentages, the chain must be mathematically supportable.
Ultimate Controlling Beneficiary — UCB. The party that the available evidence shows ultimately exercises or benefits from effective control of the company or asset when the conventional UBO conclusion cannot be mathematically completed.
- UCB is not used to relabel an incomplete UBO
- Formal records and analytical inferences remain distinguishable
- Every attribution includes reasoning, evidence and confidence
Decision ruleSEPARATE CONCLUSIONS
Step 1Reconstruct formal chainREGISTRY + FILINGS
Step 2Test ownership calculationPERCENTAGES + RIGHTS
Conclusion AUBOWHERE ESTABLISHED
Conclusion BUCBWHERE ATTRIBUTABLE
Method
A staged control analysis.
The process attempts the formal ownership conclusion first and uses UCB attribution only where the evidence supports effective control.
01
Define the target
Identify the asset, company, vessel, transaction or relationship under investigation.
02
Resolve entities
Normalize names, jurisdictions, addresses, identifiers and historical identities.
03
Reconstruct legal ownership
Trace direct and indirect owners, percentages, voting rights, trusts, state interests and relevant dates.
04
Test effective control
Assess operational, management, contractual, financial, family, state and continuity indicators.
05
Assign the conclusion
Report a UBO where established, a UCB where attributable, or no ultimate conclusion where evidence remains insufficient.
Control indicators
Evidence is assessed in combination, not as isolated signals.
No single indicator automatically creates a UCB conclusion. Weight depends on source quality, consistency and relevance to the specific structure.
OPS
Operational control
Management continuity, decision authority, shared infrastructure, commercial direction and operational dependence.
BEN
Beneficial interest
Economic benefit, financing, profit flows, asset use, family interests and related-party arrangements.
HIS
Historical continuity
Control signals that persist across transfers, renamed entities, reflagging or purported disposals.
SRC
Source quality
Authority, recency, independence and consistency of registries, filings, legal records and corroborating evidence.
ALT
Alternative hypotheses
Competing explanations are documented where the evidence does not support a single high-confidence attribution.
Output standard
Make the conclusion usable and reviewable.
- Named UBO or UCB conclusion, or an explicit unresolved result
- Entity type and jurisdiction where identifiable
- Reasoning explaining the control basis
- Direct source references and available identifiers
- Confidence assessment
- Risk Y/N and explanation where included in the product
Structured conclusionREVIEWABLE
FactsRegistry and filings
LinksOwnership and control
SignalsOperational evidence
UCBreasoned attribution
ConclusionNamed or unresolved
ConfidenceExplicit assessment
EvidenceTraceable sources
Analytical limits
Attribution is constrained by the evidence.
Tevuna does not force an ultimate-control conclusion where records and corroborating evidence are insufficient.
01
No automatic substitution
An unavailable UBO does not automatically produce a UCB.
02
No guaranteed registry access
Availability varies by jurisdiction, record type, language, access conditions and historical coverage.
03
No hidden certainty
Material gaps, contradictions and alternative explanations remain visible in the output.
04
No legal determination
UCB is an intelligence attribution and does not replace a legal or regulatory determination by a competent authority.
Apply the method
Use UCB intelligence in maritime or corporate investigations.
The method can be delivered for a single target, a portfolio or an integrated workflow.