{
  "id": "BRD-036",
  "slug": "brd-036",
  "title": "A non-US brand should expect automated identity verification to fail",
  "statement": "A brand registered outside the US will usually fail the initial automated identity check and must budget for an appeal or an external vet.",
  "rationale": "The automated check queries US business registers, so a foreign company is absent from them for the ordinary reason that it is foreign. The result is an UNVERIFIED brand and a rejection that reads like a data error, and teams spend days re-checking a perfectly correct name and address before discovering the path was never going to work. Knowing it in advance turns a mystery into a scheduled step.",
  "layer": "BRAND",
  "layerSlug": "brand",
  "object": "brand.country",
  "severity": "HIGH",
  "detectability": [
    "DETERMINISTIC"
  ],
  "failureClass": "TERMINAL_EXTERNAL",
  "authorities": [
    "TCR"
  ],
  "applicabilityText": "Applies to every 10DLC registration.",
  "universal": true,
  "remediation": "Plan for the identity-status appeal before submitting: have the home-country registration certificate ready as a PDF, and expect to order an external vet if the appeal does not clear it. Do not change correct brand data in response to the first UNVERIFIED result.",
  "notes": "Not a defect in the registration and not fixable by editing it — this rule exists to set the expectation. What the user has to do themselves is gather the evidence an appeal will need (the official registration extract from their national register, in English or with a certified translation) and allow for the extra week the appeal takes.",
  "phase": "approval",
  "automated": true,
  "attestation": {
    "question": "Do you have the home-country registration extract ready as a PDF, in English or with a certified translation, before you submit?",
    "howToCheck": [
      "Download the official extract from your national register — Companies House, the Handelsregister, the ASIC extract, whichever applies.",
      "Confirm the legal name on it is spelled exactly as you are about to submit it.",
      "Budget an extra week for the identity appeal, and do not edit correct brand data in response to the first UNVERIFIED result."
    ],
    "failureLooksLike": "A correct non-US brand comes back UNVERIFIED because the automated check queries US registers only, and the team spends days re-checking a name and address that were right all along."
  },
  "url": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-036/",
  "markdown": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/brand/brd-036.md",
  "registry": "https://ekas.io/rules/10dlc/",
  "updated": "2026-07-25",
  "licence": "CC BY 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
}