Use actual ownership, control and entity records relevant to the proposed relationship. Explain the applicant’s employer separately from family relationships.
Keep proposals and effective rights distinct
Identify signed and effective arrangements, pending changes and who holds relevant rights today. Do not rely on an informal intention as if it were already reflected in the legal structure.
Ask for consolidated statements showing intercompany transactions, because they demonstrate both the relationship and that each entity trades. Build the organization chart from legal relationships, not from desired headcount.
The petition should carry the share purchase agreement, the post-closing ownership chart, the U.S. entity's registration and evidence that it is trading. The broader L-1A file needs the qualifying corporate relationship, continuing foreign business and either ongoing U.S. operations or, for a new office, the ability to commence them, and the transferee’s continuous qualifying foreign year within the prior three. Kinship alone neither creates nor defeats a qualifying corporate relationship, so a description built around family closeness misses what a reviewer actually needs. Ownership share, voting rights and control on paper decide whether the U.S. and foreign entities share the parent, branch, subsidiary or affiliate link an L-1A petition depends on, regardless of how family members refer to their roles informally among themselves. Where shares are held in trust, jointly or through an intermediate entity, trace the actual legal holder rather than the person who is treated as the owner in practice.