How does North Data present company representatives across different views?

Information about company representatives and other people connected with a company can appear in several places on a North Data company page. These include the company history, a separate persons history, the network and – for customers – the legal representative table.

The people and totals displayed in these views do not always match. This does not necessarily mean that information is missing or contradictory. Each view serves a different purpose and follows its own rules for selecting and presenting information.

Where is information about company representatives displayed?

The company history, persons history and network are not complete lists of people. They show a selection of the available information.

Customers should use the legal representative table when they want to review the legal representatives currently recorded by North Data for a company. To examine earlier representatives or changes over time, they should use the company history, persons history or original publications.

Visitors before the paywall cannot see the legal representative table. The visible history, persons history and network should therefore be understood as a preview and not as a complete list of company representatives.

Why can different people appear in the views?

Several factors determine which people are displayed:

A currently recorded person may therefore appear in the legal representative table without also being displayed in the company history, persons history or network.

Similarly, a person may be named in an original publication without appearing as a structured representative or history event.

Which roles are given priority?

When the available space is not sufficient to display everyone, certain representative roles receive a higher display priority.

Management functions such as managing directors are, for example, generally given higher priority than holders of a power of attorney.

If several people have the same lower-priority role and only some of them can be displayed, the selection does not represent a business or legal ranking. The displayed people are therefore not more important than the people who are not displayed.

For this reason, one limited view may also show a different person from another limited view.

How many entries can the separate persons history show?

When the history is divided into a company history and a separate persons history, the persons history can use up to two-thirds of the normal history cutoff.

For customers, two-thirds of 25 is rounded down to 16. Before the paywall, two-thirds of 12 results in a maximum of 8 entries.

These values are maximum display capacities. They do not mean that exactly 16 or 8 people will always appear. The persons history may contain fewer entries if fewer suitable or reliably assignable events are available.

How many nodes does the network show?

Separate display limits apply to the network. The number of visible nodes depends on the access status and the available width of the browser window.

The page width refers to the width available to the website, measured in pixels – not directly to the physical size of the screen.

Changing the width of the browser window may therefore also change the number of visible nodes.

However, the network remains a selected visual overview. It should not be used to count all of a company’s legal representatives.

Why might a person be missing even when the display limit has not been reached?

Display limits and role priorities are not the only reasons why a person may not appear in the company history or persons history.

North Data converts information from official publications into structured roles and chronological events. A person can be presented as a structured event only when their role and – where required – the associated dates can be determined with sufficient certainty.

The role is not described clearly

Some official publications contain role descriptions that become clear to a human reader only from the surrounding context.

For example, a person may be described only as the “chair” or “vice chair” without explicitly stating which body they chair. A human reader may understand from the context that the relevant body is the executive board. However, if the responsible body is not explicitly named, the role cannot always be assigned automatically with sufficient certainty.

By contrast, an explicit description such as “member of the executive board” can be assigned clearly to a role and can therefore be processed more reliably as structured information.

A person may consequently be named in the original publication without appearing as a structured representative or history event.

The relevant dates cannot be determined reliably

A person may also be missing if the beginning or end of their function cannot be reconstructed reliably.

This can occur particularly with associations because the available registry information may sometimes be incomplete or inconsistent. A reliable chronological assignment is, however, required before information can be displayed in a history.

The original publication and the structured views serve different purposes

The fact that a name appears in the complete publication text does not therefore automatically mean that the person can also appear in the generated title, history or another structured view.

Which view should I use?

Summary

Different people or totals on a North Data company page do not necessarily mean that information is missing or contradictory.

The differences may have the following causes:

• The views serve different purposes.
• Display limits apply to the history, persons history and network.
• Certain representative roles receive a higher display priority.
• Different maximum limits may apply to customers and visitors before the paywall.
• The width of the browser window affects the number of network nodes.
• A person’s role may not be sufficiently clear from the source.
• The required dates may not be determined reliably.

For customers, the legal representative table is the relevant view for reviewing the legal representatives currently recorded by North Data. It does not show historical representative roles or changes over time.

Earlier representatives, appointments, resignations and role changes may be found in the company history, persons history or original publications. The network, by contrast, visualizes a limited selection of relationships.