Organization

Name forms, kinds and validity periods

An organization carries several simultaneous name forms with different legal weight. LEI-CDF distinguishes LegalName from OtherEntityNames, schema.org separates legalName from name and alternateName, and BODS separates name from alternateNames. Each form needs a kind, a language tag, and an explicit validity interval because names change without changing identity.

1. Which single name form is the legal name in the jurisdiction of formation, and which register or constitutive document evidences it? identity
2. In which languages and scripts is each name form authoritative, and is any Latin transliteration normative or merely convenience? interoperability
3. Over which interval was each name form valid, and is the interval closed, open-ended or unknown? temporal
4. Is the name form unique within its register, and may two distinct organizations legitimately carry the same string? constraint

Name history and change tracking

Former names must remain retrievable and ordered, because lookups, sanctions screening and lineage tracing rely on historical strings. Companies House exposes previous_company_names as a first-class array and LEI-CDF carries name changes inside LegalEntityEvents; a purely current-state name model loses answerable history.

1. What is the ordered sequence of legal names, and which change event caused each transition? lifecycle
2. Did any recorded name change coincide with a change of legal identity rather than a mere renaming? identity
3. When was each historical name observed or ingested, as distinct from when it became legally effective? provenance

Scheme-qualified external identifiers

An organization identifier is meaningless without its scheme. ISO 6523 ICD codes pair a numeric scheme designator with a value (0199 for LEI, 0060 for D-U-N-S, 0208 for the Belgian enterprise number); LEI-CDF pairs RegistrationAuthorityID with RegistrationAuthorityEntityID; BODS requires id plus scheme/schemeName or uri; and the EU EUID must itself be ISO 6523 compliant.

1. Under which governed scheme was each identifier issued, and what is the registered scheme designator for that scheme? identity
2. Which authority issued the identifier, and is that authority listed in a governed registration-authority registry? authority
3. Can the identifier be reassigned, retired or superseded, and what happens to references when it is? lifecycle
4. How was the identifier verified against its issuing source, and when was that verification last performed? validation

Canonical key selection and internal identity

Because many organizations hold several external identifiers and many hold none, the model must state a deterministic priority for choosing the canonical key: authoritative master-system identifier first, then a governed global identifier or IRI, then a UUID or ULID assigned by the adopting Dimension. Dates, names and addresses are never keys.

1. Which identifier is the canonical key for this organization record, and which rule in the identity priority selected it? identity
2. Under which events may the canonical key change, and how are prior keys kept resolvable? constraint
3. If the organization has no external identifier at all, what dimension-assigned identifier is used and who assigned it? identity
4. Within which namespace is the canonical key unique, and is that namespace globally resolvable? interoperability

Entity resolution, matching evidence and duplicates

Governed registries themselves record duplicates — LEI RegistrationStatus includes DUPLICATE, and Companies House exposes partial_data_available and etag for concurrency. A defensible model therefore records the evidence, method and confidence behind every merge or split rather than asserting a silent match.

1. Which attributes and sources were compared to conclude that two candidate records denote the same organization? evidence
2. Who decided the merge or split, when, and is the decision reversible? decision
3. Does an upstream register already flag one of the records as a duplicate or annulled registration? validation
4. Which candidate pairs were explicitly rejected as non-matches, so the same comparison is not repeated? quality

Entity legal form assignment

Legal form is a four-character ELF code valid only in combination with a jurisdiction, drawn from a list of more than 3,600 forms across more than 200 jurisdictions. The reserved codes 8888 (form not yet listed) and 9999 (no separate legal form) make the absence of a form explicitly representable rather than null.

1. Which ELF code and jurisdiction pair describes the organization's legal form, and which code-list version was used? classification
2. If no listed legal form applies, is the correct representation 8888 (pending listing) or 9999 (no separate legal form), and why? exception
3. Has the legal form changed through conversion, and what is the effective date of each form assignment? lifecycle
4. Is the legal form valid only at a sub-national level requiring an ISO 3166-2 jurisdiction code? spatial

Entity category, subcategory and legal personality

LEI-CDF categorises entities as BRANCH, GENERAL, FUND, SOLE_PROPRIETOR, RESIDENT_GOVERNMENT_ENTITY or INTERNATIONAL_ORGANIZATION, with government subcategories. Category determines which other findings are even applicable and whether the subject has separate legal personality — a branch and a sole proprietorship do not.

1. Which entity category and subcategory apply, and which facts of the record does that category make mandatory or inapplicable? classification
2. Does the organization have separate legal personality, and if not, which legal person bears its rights and obligations? authority
3. Is the organization unregistered or informal, such that registration, standing and succession findings do not apply? exception
4. Is this a government or international-organization subject whose formation rests on statute or treaty rather than registration? authority

Organization formality spectrum

org:Organization is a collection of people with a common purpose that can act as an agent, including informal communities. org:FormalOrganization is recognized in the world at large, especially in legal jurisdictions, with rights and responsibilities (corporation, charity, government, church). rov:RegisteredOrganization / CBV Legal Entity is a formal organization that gained legal status through a registration process and excludes natural persons, virtual organizations and agents that can act without that registration. Many organizations are not legal entities; some umbrellas contain several legal entities. Unregistered collectives remain in scope of this model as Organization, not as RegisteredOrganization.

1. Is this subject an informal organization, a formal organization recognized in a jurisdiction, a registered legal entity, or an umbrella that holds several legal entities? classification
2. Can this organization enter contracts and bear legal obligations in its own name, or does another registered entity act for it? authority
3. If the subject is a sole trader or person acting in a business capacity, is the person-as-human modelled elsewhere and only the business capacity kept here? definition

National legal form vocabulary

Each jurisdiction maintains a limited set of recognized company or entity types (Plc, GmbH, SA, LLP and so on). Lexically identical labels can have different legal meanings across borders. RegOrg orgType and CBV legal form type are SKOS/code list specializations of org:classification. ELF is the cross-border alignment, not a replacement for the national register's form code when that register is the master system.

1. What legal-form code and label does the home register use, and how does it map to ELF? interoperability
2. Is legal form intrinsic to the subject (affecting powers and identifiers) so it should be modelled as a typed class, or only a taxonomic label? decision
3. Which similarly named foreign legal forms must not be treated as equivalent to this form? interoperability

Activity code assignments across schemes

Activity classification is scheme-bound and revision-bound: NACE Rev. 2.1 applies to European statistics from 2025 under Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 and Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/137, ISIC Rev. 5 was endorsed in 2023, and national registers use their own lists such as UK SIC. An assignment without its scheme version is not interpretable.

1. Under which classification scheme and revision was each activity code assigned, and at which hierarchy level? classification
2. Which activity is the principal one, and by what criterion was principality determined? classification
3. Was the code assigned by the organization, by a register or by a statistical authority, and does that change its weight? provenance
4. How are codes from a superseded revision carried forward, and is the mapping one-to-one? interoperability

Statistical unit alignment

Official registers hold enterprise group, enterprise and local unit as mandatory statistical units alongside legal units and their links, because an enterprise may span several legal units and group boundaries follow control rather than legal personality. Recording this alignment prevents an agent from silently merging legal units into one organization or splitting an organization to match a statistical unit.

1. Which statistical unit types is this organization mapped to, and by which statistical authority? classification
2. Does the mapped enterprise span legal units other than this organization, and which ones? composition
3. Where is the group's global decision centre, and does it differ from this organization's jurisdiction? ownership
4. Where the statistical view and the legal view disagree, which is authoritative for a given consumer? interoperability

Declared purpose, object clause and non-profit status

W3C ORG models purpose as a first-class property and schema.org exposes nonprofitStatus and ownershipFundingInfo. Purpose statements are either constitutive (an object clause in the charter) or self-declared marketing text, and the two carry very different weight; non-profit status is a jurisdiction-granted determination, not a self-description.

1. Is this purpose statement a constitutive object clause, a governing-body resolution or self-declared communication? provenance
2. Which authority granted the non-profit, charitable or public-benefit status, under which instrument, and is it time-limited? authority
3. Does the declared purpose legally restrict what the organization may do, and what is the consequence of acting outside it? constraint
4. When was the purpose statement last reviewed or reaffirmed, and does it still match the registered object clause? quality

Scale, workforce and size-class measures

Size indicators such as headcount are measurements with a method, unit, reference period and source, not static attributes. schema.org exposes numberOfEmployees and statistical registers hold size variables; without a reference period and a counting basis (headcount, full-time equivalent, including or excluding contractors) the figure is not comparable.

1. On what counting basis and for which reference period is each size figure stated? measurement
2. Who produced the size figure — the organization, a register, or a third party — and is it audited? provenance
3. Which size class does the figure place the organization in, under which jurisdiction's thresholds? classification
4. Does the figure cover this organization alone or a consolidated group, and which entities are included? composition

Formation act and creation date

LEI-CDF records EntityCreationDate as the legal establishment date, schema.org records foundingDate and foundingLocation, BODS records foundingDate and formedByStatute, and Companies House records date_of_creation. Formation date and first registration date are frequently different and must not be conflated.

1. On what date did the organization legally come into existence, and is that the same as its first registration date? temporal
2. Which instrument created the organization — articles, deed, statute, treaty or a founding resolution — and where is it held? provenance
3. In which jurisdiction and at which location was the organization founded, and does that differ from its current jurisdiction? spatial
4. If no formation date is known or the organization predates its register, how is that recorded without fabricating a date? exception

Registry entry and registration authority

An entry links the organization to an authoritative source through a register code plus a local entity number, as in LEI-CDF's RegistrationAuthorityID and RegistrationAuthorityEntityID, drawing on a governed list of more than 1,050 registers across 232 jurisdictions. The EU adds the EUID, which must be ISO 6523 compliant and unequivocally identify companies and branches across interconnected registers.

1. Which register holds an entry for this organization, and what is its governed register code? authority
2. What entry or registration number does that register assign, and what is its syntax and check rule? identity
3. How many registers hold entries for this organization, and which is authoritative for which fact? authority
4. Does the entry describe a branch or a foreign company rather than a domestically constituted organization? classification

Home legal jurisdiction

LEI-CDF LegalJurisdiction is the jurisdiction of legal formation and registration and is the jurisdiction on which LegalForm depends. It is an ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code or an ISO 3166-2 region code, uppercase. French overseas territories sharing French legal forms are treated as France for legal jurisdiction in the ELF list implementation. Home jurisdiction is not necessarily the headquarters country or the tax residence.

1. What is the jurisdiction of legal formation and registration, at country or regional grain? spatial
2. How does the legal jurisdiction differ from headquarters country, tax residence and principal place of business? spatial
3. If the country has multiple regional registers (for example Germany or Spain), which regional register and 3166-2 code is home? spatial

Entity status distinguished from record registration status

LEI-CDF keeps EntityStatus (ACTIVE, INACTIVE, NULL — whether the entity is legally registered and operating) strictly separate from RegistrationStatus (PENDING_VALIDATION, ISSUED, DUPLICATE, LAPSED, RETIRED, ANNULLED, CANCELLED, TRANSFERRED, PENDING_TRANSFER, PENDING_ARCHIVAL — the standing of the record). Companies House adds a twelve-value national enumeration plus company_status_detail. Collapsing these into one status field destroys answerability.

1. Is the organization itself currently in existence and operating, and on what date was that last established? state
2. What is the standing of each record about the organization, separately from the organization's own status? state
3. Where a status is qualified (for example administration, liquidation or struck-off pending), what is the qualifying detail and the governing procedure? state
4. How does a national status value map onto the model's normalised status, and what is lost in the mapping? interoperability

Recurring filing and renewal obligations

Standing is maintained by periodic acts: LEI records carry NextRenewalDate and lapse if not renewed, and national registers require confirmation statements and accounts with their own due dates. Missing a due date changes record standing without changing the organization's existence.

1. Which recurring obligations apply to this organization, under which instrument, and at what frequency? requirement
2. What is the next due date for each obligation, and what is the consequence of missing it? temporal
3. What evidence shows an obligation was fulfilled, and where is that evidence retrievable? evidence
4. Is the organization exempt from an otherwise applicable obligation, and on what recorded basis? exception

Lifecycle event records

LEI-CDF v3.1 introduced LegalEntityEvents as a container carrying event type, dates, validation documents and the fields affected. W3C ORG models ChangeEvent linked by changedBy and resultedFrom. An event record must separate the date the event legally took effect from the date it was recorded and the date it was observed.

1. What type of lifecycle event occurred, and which fields of the organization record does it affect? event
2. What are the event's effective date, its recorded date at the authority, and the observation time in this system? temporal
3. Which validation documents evidence the event, and who validated them? evidence
4. Is the event completed, in progress or withdrawn, and can it be superseded by a later correction? state

Succession, continuity and lineage

W3C ORG treats an organization resulting from a change event as sufficiently distinct to have its own identity, linked to originalOrganization; LEI-CDF carries SuccessorEntity with SuccessorLEI or SuccessorEntityName; Eurostat register practice defines continuity rules for unit births and deaths. The hard question is when a change preserves identity and when it creates a new subject.

1. Did this change preserve the organization's identity, or did it terminate one subject and create another? identity
2. Which organizations are predecessors and which are successors, and what is the cardinality of the transition? relationship
3. If a successor exists but has no identifier, how is it recorded without inventing one? exception
4. Which identifiers, registrations, obligations and relationships transfer to the successor and which lapse? constraint

Dissolution and expiry

An organization ceases as a subject by dissolution, completion of winding-up, or replacement through corporate action. schema.org dissolutionDate is a secondary discovery field. LEI RETIRED means the entity ceased without merger; INACTIVE covers closure, acquisition or illegitimacy. Identifier records are not reused. History remains queryable after cessation. Deletion of the subject record is a retention decision, not an automatic consequence of dissolution.

1. Has the organization ceased, on what effective datetime, under which reason, and is winding-up still in progress? lifecycle
2. Which identifiers remain the correct historical keys after cessation, and which must not be reassigned or reused for a new entity? identity
3. How long must the dissolved organization's identity and lineage remain available for resolution and audit, and who is the residual steward? retention

Consolidation, branch and fund relationship links

RR-CDF records IS_DIRECTLY_CONSOLIDATED_BY, IS_ULTIMATELY_CONSOLIDATED_BY, IS_INTERNATIONAL_BRANCH_OF, IS_FUND-MANAGED_BY, IS_SUBFUND_OF and IS_FEEDER_TO, each with up to three distinct period types, a status, quantifiers with a measurement method, and eight exception reasons for when a parent cannot be reported.

1. Which relationship type connects this organization to the other party, and in which direction? relationship
2. Which distinct periods apply — relationship validity, accounting period and document filing period — and do they differ? temporal
3. What quantified measure describes the relationship, and by which measurement method and unit? measurement
4. If no parent can be reported, which exception reason applies and when will it be reviewed? exception

Ownership and beneficial-ownership interests

BODS models ownership and control as relationship records with a subject entity, an interested party, and an array of interests each carrying type, directOrIndirect, a beneficialOwnershipOrControl flag valid only for natural persons, share values expressible as exact figures or as minimum/maximum ranges, and start and end dates. Indirect chains are represented through component records rather than collapsed edges.

1. What type of interest does the interested party hold, in what amount or range, and is it held directly or indirectly? relationship
2. Is this interest asserted as beneficial ownership or control by a natural person, and under which jurisdiction's threshold? classification
3. Where the interested party is unknown or unspecified, what reason is recorded and what is the follow-up? exception
4. For an indirect interest, which component records describe each step of the ownership chain? composition
5. Who asserted this ownership statement, on what date, from which source type, and under what licence is it published? provenance

Official organizational roles and authorised representation

ISO 5009 codes cover over 2,000 official roles across almost 250 legal forms in 89 jurisdictions, are tied to the relevant ELF code, include only roles appearing in local legislation, and explicitly exclude internal functional titles such as Chief Risk Officer. W3C ORG separates Role, Post and Membership. This finding covers the organization-side view: which posts exist and what they authorise, not the persons filling them.

1. Which official organizational roles exist for this organization's legal form, and what are their governed codes? authority
2. What may a holder of each role bind the organization to, and are there joint-signature or threshold constraints? authority
3. Is the appointment currently in force, and what are its start and end dates as recorded by the authority? temporal
4. Is a claimed title an official role under local legislation or an internal functional title with no statutory effect? classification

External affiliation, membership and accreditation

Organizations belong to federations, chambers, standards bodies and networks, and hold accreditations or certifications granted by external bodies. W3C ORG models Membership as an n-ary relation between agent, organization and role; schema.org exposes memberOf and hasCredential. These links are neither ownership nor control and must not be conflated with them.

1. Which external body is the organization affiliated with or accredited by, and what is that body's own identifier? relationship
2. What rights, obligations or claims does the affiliation confer, and is it publicly verifiable? authority
3. Over which period is the affiliation or accreditation valid, and what triggers its lapse or withdrawal? temporal
4. Is this link genuinely non-controlling, or does it in substance confer control that belongs in the ownership layer? constraint

Registered office and legal address

The registered office is the address at which the organization is legally addressable in its jurisdiction of formation; it is frequently not an operating location and may be a service-provider address. National registers record when it is in dispute or undeliverable, which are distinct states from being absent.

1. Which address is the registered or legal address, as distinct from the headquarters and other addresses? spatial
2. Is the registered address disputed, undeliverable or served by a third-party provider, and since when? state
3. When did the registered address last change, and which lifecycle event and filing recorded the change? lifecycle
4. In which language and script is the address authoritative, and is a transliterated form required for interchange? interoperability

Operating sites, branches and service areas

W3C ORG models Site as a place where an organization operates and separates hasSite from hasRegisteredSite. Operating presence is distinct from legal seat: a branch may be separately registered and separately identified, while a site may be purely operational with no registry footprint at all.

1. What kind of presence is this — registered branch, operating site, local unit or service point — and is it separately registered? classification
2. Over which period was the site active, and what evidences its opening and closing? temporal
3. Which geographic areas does the organization serve from this site, and at what granularity is that recorded? spatial
4. Which place or facility record does this site resolve to, and who maintains that record? interoperability

Electronic addresses and public channels

Electronic business addressing uses the same scheme-qualified pattern as identity: a Peppol participant is addressed as an ISO 6523 scheme designator plus a value, for example 0199 with an LEI or 0208 with a Belgian enterprise number. Public channels such as websites and published contact points are separate, weaker assertions that require their own verification.

1. Under which electronic addressing scheme is the organization reachable, and what is the scheme-qualified address? interoperability
2. How was each channel verified as belonging to this organization, and when? validation
3. What is each channel authorised for — legal service, invoicing, general enquiry or public communication? authority
4. Which channels are retired, and are prior references redirected or tombstoned? lifecycle

Assertion provenance and attribution

Every field value is an assertion by some agent from some source at some time. PROV-O supplies wasAttributedTo, wasDerivedFrom, wasGeneratedBy and actedOnBehalfOf with prov:Organization as an agent type; BODS requires source type, url, retrievedAt and assertedBy on each statement. Event time and observation time must be recorded separately.

1. From which source was each assertion derived, of what source type, and under what licence may it be reused? provenance
2. Which agent asserted the value, and on whose behalf were they acting? ownership
3. Was the value copied, transformed or inferred, and from which prior version was it derived? provenance
4. Are event time and observation/ingestion time recorded separately for this assertion, and with what precision? temporal

Validation, corroboration level and data quality

LEI-CDF grades a record's corroboration as PENDING, ENTITY_SUPPLIED_ONLY, PARTIALLY_CORROBORATED or FULLY_CORROBORATED against a named ValidationAuthority, and RR-CDF carries validation sources, documents and references. Companies House marks partial_data_available and exposes an entity tag for concurrency. Quality is therefore a declared, evidenced grade rather than an assumed property.

1. What corroboration level applies to this record, and against which validation authority and documents was it established? validation
2. How stale is each value relative to its source's own update cadence, and when must it be refreshed? quality
3. Which required fields are absent or only partially available, and is that a source limitation or an ingestion gap? quality
4. What version or entity tag did the source return, and how are lost updates prevented on write-back? validation

Disclosure classification, access and retention

Organization records mix data that registers publish freely, data that is licensed, and data that identifies natural persons and therefore carries privacy obligations. BODS requires an explicit licence on publication; national registers operate protected-address and secure-officer regimes; and retention must be decided per class rather than for the record as a whole.

1. What disclosure class does each field group carry — publicly disclosed, licensed, restricted or personal-data-bearing? privacy
2. Under which licence was source data obtained, and does that licence permit redistribution in the intended projection? access
3. Which fields identify natural persons, and what minimisation is applied before the record is shared? privacy
4. How long is each class retained, what triggers deletion or archival, and what survives as a tombstone? retention
5. How can the organization or a data subject request correction or erasure, and how is the outcome evidenced? exception

Record stewards

The organization itself, acting through officers, is the steward of its own subject record. Registers hold registrar-stewarded copies. GLEIF ManagingLOU administers the LEI record. CBV legal representatives (via schema.org and related discovery) are not the same as employment posts. This layer records stewardship of data, not corporate governance of people.

1. Who is the steward of this Dimension's organization record, in which role, and through which officer or system account? ownership
2. Which registrars steward authoritative copies, and which copy is master for which field group? provenance
3. Who is authorized to create, update or request deletion of identity fields, and under what evidence standard? authority

Standard alignment, crosswalks and register divergence

External standards are alignments, not conformance claims. W3C ORG, schema.org, LEI-CDF, NACE and ISIC each cover overlapping but non-identical ground, and national registers legitimately disagree with global ones about name, status and address. Divergence must be recorded as an observation with sources, not silently resolved.

1. To which external standard, version and element does each model element map, and is the mapping exact, broader, narrower or partial? interoperability
2. Is a conformance claim being made, and if so what evidence supports it, or is this alignment only? evidence
3. Where two sources assert different values for the same fact, what is recorded and which source prevails for which consumer? validation
4. Which projections are published from this model, and which fields does each deliberately omit? access