This is Ivan from Russia.
Ivan is a businessman.
To save up on taxes, he registered a company in Canada.
However, when Ivan went to get his money, the bank demanded to prove that the company
indeed belongs to him.
Now Ivan has to receive an extract from the commercial register of Canada and certify
it for use in Russia.
Unfortunately for Ivan, Canada is one of the few countries that is not a member of the
Apostille convention.
This means Ivan cannot certify his documents with an apostille stamp, he has to use the
procedure of consular legalization.
Consular legalization is the earliest form of certifying documents for use abroad.
This procedure applies when either the country of origin or the country of destination of
a document are not members of the Apostille convention.
Nowadays there are about 80 countries that have not acceded to the Apostille convention.
These are such countries as China, Canada, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
Consular legalization is always carried out in the country that issued the document.
Consular legalization only applies to the official documents, issued by public institutions
or notaries.
Seals and signatures have to be clear and readable.
Consular legalization is carried out in several stages:
First, the document is notarized Notary’s seal is verified by the Ministry
of Justice Then the document is legalized by the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs Finally, the document is certified by the
Embassy of the country of destination
Thus, the process can be quite lengthy and expensive.
Luckily, Ivan does not have to travel to Canada himself.
He turned to Schmidt & Schmidt and quickly received a duly legalized extract from the
commercial register for a reasonable price.
Ivan is happy – now he can finally receive his money at the bank.
Schmidt & Schmidt helps with the consular legalization in more than 80 countries of
the world!