In this month’s round-up, of particular interest, nearly two years after its publication, the EU’s new regulatory framework facilitating the cross-border distribution of collective investment schemes applied from 2nd August. With this we saw several regulators announce the transposition of the new rules.
The big month of liquidity finally arrived where we saw a number of liquidity developments come to fruition at the end of the month, including: ESMA’s new guidelines on liquidity…
All eyes may be on the month ahead as we enter the final countdown for the entering into force of ESMA’s liquidity stress testing guidelines, however, the past month still brought several important developments on topics such as: AIFMD; Money Market Funds; PRIIPs; Liquidity; and Short Selling.
This month’s regulatory round-up pulls together some interesting regulatory developments we have tracked throughout June. The past month brought a number of important developments, particularly on the EU Money Market Fund Regulation, with ESMA publishing updated reporting instructions, and translations to the MMF guidelines.
This month marked one year since the collapse of Neil Woodford’s LF Woodford Equity Income fund. The Woodford fund was suspended in June, after it became overwhelmed by redemption requests from investors. One year on and investors are still awaiting their final pay-out. One year on and questions concerning the liquidity mismatches in open-ended funds still remain.
With the recent market volatility caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, regulators across the EU and in some jurisdictions further afield have been banning short selling for varying periods. Although there are many who are sceptical of the benefits of short selling bans, several EU states including France, Italy, Spain and Austria had bans in place since March with Italy’s CONSOB opting for a ban until 18th June. Germany, along with Britain which still operates under EU rules, held back in imposing market wide bans.
