Managing multiple legal entities in Catena-X: simplifying dataspace participation with the ManagedBy-feature

Participating in Catena-X gives companies access to a secure ecosystem for data exchange across the automotive value chain. As participation expands across regions, subsidiaries, and business units, many organizations face a practical challenge: how to represent multiple legal entities in the dataspace and increase administrative efficiency.

To address this challenge, Cofinity-X has introduced a feature that allows one active legal entity to centrally manage participation and company data for other legal entities within the same corporate group. This creates even more participation opportunities for organizations operating across multiple regions and legal structures. The ManagedBy-feature can be used by every Catena-X participant as part of the Catena-X dataspace contract.

Making participation easier for multinational enterprises

Until now, organizations with multiple legal entities often had to register and maintain each organization separately to the Catena-X dataspace. While this approach reflects the legal independence of individual entities, global groups operating across multiple regions and legal structures often look for ways to simplify administration. Our new feature addresses this need. A real-world example: The parent Volkswagen Group can now act as the managing participant for its subsidiaries AUDI AG and Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, including all sites and addresses.

One active participant can take responsibility for other legal entities within the corporate group, instead of each company completing the full onboarding process and maintaining its own data. This allows organizations to centralize administration while still representing their legal subsidiaries more accurately inside the dataspace.

The feature is particularly useful for organizations that:

• operate across multiple countries
• have regional subsidiaries, business units, sites and addresses
• want to reduce onboarding and administration effort

To understand how this works in practice, it is helpful to look at the different Business Partner Numbers (BPNs) used in Catena-X. Business partner numbers are unique identifiers within Catena-X, comparable to citizens ID numbers or phone numbers. Every BPN is unique within the dataspace and enables the precise identification of business partners. It is based on publicly available company information and eliminates the challenges caused by different spellings, company names, or language variations. A BPNL identifies a legal entity, such as Volkswagen, Audi, or Porsche. A BPNS identifies a specific site belonging to that legal entity, for example an Audi production plant or a Porsche development center. A BPNA identifies a physical address, such as a factory entrance, warehouse location, or office building. Together, these unique identifiers create a standardized company structure across the dataspace, making it easier for business partners to identify the right organizations, locations, and operational sites for data exchange and collaboration.

The ManagedBy-feature allows Volkswagen AG to act as the managing participant for Audi AG and Porsche AG. While a BPNL is created automatically and cannot be edited, Volkswagen AG can centrally maintain sites (BPNS) and addresses (BPNA) for its managed subsidiaries. This reduces administrative effort while ensuring that business partners can still identify exactly which legal person, site, or address they are working with.

For detailed information about onboarding, roles, and operational processes, please refer to the technical implementation guide.

Benefits for organizations

For organizations with distributed legal structures, the feature provides a practical way to simplify participation in Catena-X.

Key benefits include:

• streamlined onboarding for related organizations
• centralized company data maintenance
• reduced operational and administrative effort
• improved representation of organizational structures within the dataspace

For managed companies, the model offers additional advantages. They can participate without separate onboarding costs and technical setup, while still being represented in the ecosystem through their managing participant.  

A simpler way to scale participation

Managing multiple  juristic persons is another example of how Cofinity-X evolves the dataspace based on customer needs. As more organizations expand their participation across regions and legal structures, the feature provides a practical way to simplify administration without changing how companies operate. Included as part of the Catena-X dataspace license, the feature helps organizations represent complex corporate structures in the dataspace without increasing administrative effort.

Watch the Video to learn more about BPNs in the Catena-X dataspace: