Abstract
This is a vocabulary for describing organizations that have gained legal entity status
through a formal registration process, typically in a national or regional register.
Status of This Document
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This is the First Public Working Draft of the Registered Organization Vocabulary in
W3C
's TR space and
signals its move to the Recommendations Track. It was first developed as the 'Business Core Vocabulary'
by PwC EU Services on behalf of the European Commission and
published by the European Commission
.
Further development is now being undertaken by the
Government
Linked Data Working Group
(GLD WG).
This document was published by the
Government Linked Data Working Group
as a First Public Working Draft. This document is intended to become a
W3C
Recommendation. If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please send them to
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Publication as a Working Draft does not imply endorsement by the
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This document was produced by a group operating under the 5 February 2004 W3C Patent Policy. W3C maintains a public list of any patent disclosures made in connection with the deliverables of the group; that page also includes instructions for disclosing a patent. An individual who has actual knowledge of a patent which the individual believes contains Essential Claim(s) must disclose the information in accordance with section 6 of the W3C Patent Policy.
4.
RegOrg Usage
This section is non-normative.
The following is an example of a (real) company described using the Registered Organization vocabulary (in RDF/Turtle),
which is also available as a
separate file
. This includes:
- a description of the organization;
- a legal identifier (i.e. details of the registration with the authority that conferred legal status);
- a further identifier (Open Corporates).
We assume here that example.com is publishing information about registered organizations. This might be the
company register itself or another organization.
1 <http://business.data.gov.uk/id/company/04285910>
2 a rov:RegisteredOrganization ;
3 rov:legalName "Apple Binding Ltd" ;
4 rov:companyStatus <http://example.com/ref/status/NormalActivity> ;
5 rov:companyType <http://example.com/ref/type/Plc> ;
6 rov:companyActivity <http://example.com/ref/NACE/2/C/18/01/02> ;
7 rov:companyActivity <http://example.com/ref/NACE/2/C/18/01/04> ;
8 rov:registration <http://example.com/id/li04285910> ;
9 adms:identifier <http://example.com/id/oc04285910> ;
10 org:registeredSite <http://example.com/id/rs04285910> .
# The actual registration
11 <http://example.com/id/li04285910> a adms:Identifier ;
12 skos:notation "04285910"^^ex:idType ;
13 adms:schemaAgency "UK Companies House" ;
14 dcterms:created "2001-09-12"^^xsd:date .
# A supplementary identifier (Open Corporates)
15 <http://example.com/id/oc04285910> a adms:Identifier ;
16 skos:notation "http://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/04285910"^^ex:OCid ;
17 dcterms:created "2010-10-21T15:09:59Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
18 dcterms:modified "2012-04-26T15:16:44Z"^^xsd:dateTime ;
19 dcterms:creator <http://opencorporates.com/companies/gb/07444723> .
Line 3 gives the legally registered name of the company. In some jurisdictions,
especially those where there are multiple official languages, a single company
may have several legal names and therefore it is appropriate to use
multiple instances of the
legalName
property (language tags may, of course, be added).
However, where a company is known informally by an alternative name of some sort, or a trading name,
in addition to its legal name, then
dcterms:alternative
should be used to provide those alternatives.
In lines 4 and 5, URIs identify
company status
and
company type
. Different jurisdictions will
typically define different values for company status such as trading, insolvent and
ceased trading. Similarly there is a wide variety of company types such as Plc, SA and GmbH
although within a given jurisdiction there will be a limited number of defined terms.
Even where the terms used in different jurisdictions are lexically identical, they may have slightly
different legal meanings. The controlled list of values for company type and company status
should be encoded as a SKOS Concept Scheme so that each ones has a URI.
Business registers typically record the type of activity (or multiple activities) carried out.
These are normally set out in a controlled vocabulary and again, these can vary from one jurisdiction to another.
The UN's ISIC Codes [
ISIC4
] form a common starting point for several such vocabularies including
the European Union's NACE [
NACE
] Codes and UK's SIC codes [
SIC07
]. The URIs shown as the values
of
rov:companyActivity
in lines 6 and 7 assume that NACE codes are encoded as SKOS concepts.
Need to add section to Best Practices doc on how to create SKOS concept schemes from things like NACE codes. Base on
Dave and Jeni's work on encoding SDMX etc.
so we can refer to it here.
Line 9 carries the crucial
registration
property that points to an
Identifier class (defined in
ADMS
[
ADMS
]).
Although formally the Registered Organization vocabulary has no mandatory
classes or properties, the defining characteristic of a registered organization is that it is formally registered.
This is the property that captures that information and links to the formal registration which is described
in lines 15 - 18. In this case, Apple Binding became a registered company on 12 September 2001 when
UK Companies House issued it with the identifier 04285910. The identifier is typed in line with expected
practice for
skos:notation
and the ORG ontology. Incidentally, UK Companies House
publishes its information about registered companies as linked data and the example uses that URI
as the subject of the description.
Need to say something about the registeredSite and address info - TBD once address issues resolved.
In addition to their company registration identifier, legal entities are very likely to
have other identifiers associated with them, such as tax numbers, VAT numbers etc. Line 12 points
to an example of an additional identifier, one that does not confer legal status (or any other status) on
the company but that is potentially useful as an identifier.
6.
Vocabulary Definitions
The classes and properties are described in the following sub-sections.
6.1
The Registered Organization Class
| Class |
Notes |
| rov:RegisteredOrganization |
Sub class of
org:FormalOrganization
|
The Registered Organization class is central to the vocabulary. It represents an organization that
gains legal entity status by the act of registration cf.
org:FormalOrganization
that
applies to any legal entity, including those created by other legal means. In many countries
there is a single registry although in others, such as Spain and Germany, multiple registries exist.
Registered organizations are distinct from the broader concept of organizations, groups or, in some jurisdictions, sole traders.
Many organizations exist that are not legal entities yet to the outside world they have staff, hierarchies,
locations etc. Other organizations exist that are an umbrella for several legal entities (universities
are often good examples of this).
rov:RegisteredOrganization
is a sub class of the Organization Ontology's
org:FormalOrganization
which is itself a sub class of the more general 'Agent' class found in FOAF [
FOAF
] and Dublin Core [
DC11
] that
does
encompass organizations, natural persons, groups etc. — i.e. an Agent is
any entity that is able to carry out actions.
6.2
Properties
Legal Name
| Property |
Domain |
Range |
| rov:legalName |
org:FormalOrganization |
rdfs:Literal
|
The legal name of the business. A business might have more than one legal name,
particularly in countries with more than one official language. In such cases, and where
the encoding technology allows, the language of the string should be identified.
Alternative Name
| Property |
Domain |
Range |
| dcterms:alternative |
rdfs:Resource |
rdfs:Literal
|
Some jurisdictions recognize concepts such as a trading name or alternative forms of a
legal entity's name. Alternative names can be recorded using the
dcterms:alternative
but
should not be used to record translations of the primary legal name. Where more
than one legal name exists and where they have equal standing but are expressed
in different languages, identify the language used in each of the multiple legal
names (see previous section).
It is notable that some jurisdictions regard the use of any name other than the primary Legal Name as suspicious.
Company Type
| Property |
Domain |
Range |
rov:companyType
rdfs:subPropertyOf org:classification
|
org:Organization |
skos:Concept
|
This property records the type of company. Familiar types are SA, PLC, LLC,
GmbH etc. At the time of publication, there is no agreed set of company types that
crosses borders. The term 'SA' is used in Poland and France for example although they
mean slightly different things. The UK's LLP and Greece's EPE provide further example of
close, but not exact, matches.
That said, each jurisdiction will have a limited set of recognized company types and these
should be expressed in a consistent manner in a SKOS Concept Scheme.
Company Status
| Property |
Domain |
Range |
rov:companyStatus
rdfs:subPropertyOf org:classification
|
org:Organization |
skos:Concept
|
Recording the status of a company presents the same issues as its type.
The terms 'insolvent', 'bankrupt' and 'in receivership,' for example, are likely to mean
slightly different things with different legal implications in different jurisdictions.
Taking advice from
XBRL Europe
as a starting point, however, the term 'Normal Activity'
does appear to have cross-border usefulness and this should be used in preference to terms like 'trading' or 'operating.'
Best Practice for recording various other status levels is to use the relevant jurisdiction's
terms and to encode these in a SKOS Concept Scheme.
Company Activity
| Property |
Domain |
Range |
rov:companyActivity
rdfs:subPropertyOf org:classification
|
org:Organization |
skos:Concept
|
The activity of a company should be recorded using a controlled vocabulary. Several
such vocabularies exist, many of which map to the UN's ISIC codes [
ISIC4
]. Where a particular controlled
vocabulary is in use within a given context, such as SIC codes in the UK [
SIC07
], it is acceptable to use
these, however, the preferred choice for European interoperability is NACE [
NACE
]. As with
company type and status, activity codes should be expressed as SKOS Concept Schemes.
Registration
| Property |
Domain |
Range |
rov:registration
rdfs:subPropertyOf adms:identifier
|
rov:RegisteredOrganization
|
adms:Identifier
|
The legal status of a registered organization is conferred on it by an authority within a given
jurisdiction. The registration is therefore a fundamental relationship between a the organization
and the authority with which it is registered. The details of the registration are
provided as properties of the Identifier class which is defined by
ADMS
[
ADMS
]. The vocabulary
sets no restriction on the type of legal identifier. In many countries, the business
register's identifier is the relevant data point. The tax number often fulfils this function in Spain and elsewhere.
Although there is no formal cardinality constraint on any property in the Registered Organization Vocabulary, it is
questionable whether a description of a registered organization without this property and an associated Identifier class
will be of any value.
Registered Organization
| Property |
Domain |
Range |
| rov:registeredOrganization |
dcterms:Agent |
rov:RegisteredOrganization
|
The registered organization relationship can be used to link any
dcterms:Agent
(equivalent class
foaf:Agent
)
to a Registered Organization that in some way acts as a registered legal entity for it. This is useful, for example,
where an organization includes one or more legal entities, or where a natural person is also registered as a legal entity.
@@TODO Investigate the usage of this property as it discusses physical persons as legal entities. This is said to be out of scope of RegOrg earlier on. Property is not shown yet on the overview diagram
8.
Acknowledgements
The original development of the vocabulary was carried out under the
Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations (
ISA Programme
)
of the European Commission (EC). Contributors included representatives of Member
States of the European Union, operators of national repositories, standardization
bodies and independent experts whose work was published in April 2012 [
CV1
].
That document includes the history and motivation behind the development of a set of three interlinked
Core Vocabularies of which this is one.
This version of the Registered Organization vocabulary, RegORG, builds on that work in a broader, global context.
Significant contributions to the original work on the Registered Organization vocabulary were made by:
Ignacio Boixo,
Debora Di Giacomo,
Stijn Goedertier,
Piotr Madziar (original WG chair),
Aine Mitchell,
Andrea Perego,
João Rodrigues Frade,
Chris Taggart,
Niels Van Hee,
Thomas Verdin.
The working group would also like to thank the directors of
Apple Binding
for
permission to describe their company in the example.
A.
Note on identifier and classification properties
There are several vocabularies in use with a property of 'identifier' and this vocabulary creates a sub property of one of them.
The following table provides a summary of these related but semantically different properties
in terms of their domains and ranges
| property |
domain |
range |
adms:identifier
|
rdfs:Resource
|
adms:Identifier
|
rov:registration
|
rov:RegisteredOrganization
|
adms:Identifier
(
rov:registration
is a sub property of
adms:identifier
)
|
org:identifier
|
org:Organization
|
rdfs:Literal
(
org:identifier
is a sub property of
skos:notation
)
|
dcterms:identifier
|
rdfs:Resource
|
rdfs:Literal
|
