{
  "id": "BRD-034",
  "slug": "brd-034",
  "title": "Validate a non-US identifier against its home register before submitting",
  "statement": "A non-US registration identifier should be confirmed against the issuing country's official register before it is submitted.",
  "rationale": "A foreign brand only gets a few automated attempts before it lands in the appeal queue, and an identifier that is stale, superseded or transcribed wrongly burns one of them for no reason. The home register is free to search and authoritative, which makes this the cheapest five minutes in the whole non-US registration path.",
  "layer": "BRAND",
  "layerSlug": "brand",
  "object": "brand.ein",
  "severity": "HIGH",
  "detectability": [
    "EXTERNAL_DATA"
  ],
  "failureClass": "TERMINAL_EXTERNAL",
  "authorities": [
    "HighLevel"
  ],
  "applicabilityText": "Applies to every 10DLC registration.",
  "universal": true,
  "remediation": "Look the number up before submitting: VIES for an EU VAT number, ABN Lookup for Australia, NZBN for New Zealand, the Companies Registry for Hong Kong, Companies House for the UK. Done when the register returns your company, spelled the way you are about to submit it.",
  "notes": "We cannot reach these registers. The user runs the lookup themselves and, crucially, copies the legal name back from the register rather than from their letterhead — the name the register holds is the one the vetting provider will compare against.",
  "phase": "approval",
  "automated": false,
  "attestation": {
    "question": "Did you look this identifier up in the issuing country's official register, and copy the legal name back from what the register returned?",
    "howToCheck": [
      "Search the authoritative register: VIES for an EU VAT number, ABN Lookup for Australia, NZBN for New Zealand, the Companies Registry for Hong Kong, Companies House for the UK.",
      "Copy the company name from the register's result, not from your letterhead. That is the name the vetting provider compares against."
    ],
    "failureLooksLike": "A number that is stale, superseded, or transcribed one digit wrong burns one of the few automated attempts a non-US brand gets before it lands in the appeal queue."
  },
  "url": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-034/",
  "markdown": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-034.md",
  "registry": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/",
  "updated": "2026-07-25",
  "licence": "CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}