Welcome to the first monthly regulatory round-up of 2021. Each month we will be summarising the key announcements and regulatory developments impacting the fund industry. The past month brought developments on a range of issues, from updated FAQs and guidelines impacting UCITS and AIFMs, to consultations…
Yesterday, ESMA announced that it will be launching a Common Supervisory Action (CSA) with national competent authorities (NCAs) on the supervision of costs and fees of UCITS across the European Union. The CSA aims to assess the compliance of supervised entities with the relevant cost-related provisions in the UCITS framework, and the obligation of not charging investors with undue costs.
During the CSA, national competent authorities will take into account the supervisory briefing on the supervision of costs published by ESMA in June 2020.
The past month brought important developments on topics such as fund liquidity, costs and fees charged by fund managers, AIFMD, UCITS and Money Market Funds. Most notably, in the UK, HM Treasury published the responses to the consultation on the Overseas Funds Regime, and the Financial Services Bill…
Throughout the year regulators have focused on liquidity, and as this year draws to a close, that focus shows no signs of diminishing. “Asset managers need to step up their efforts to ensure the liquidity of their funds is adequately managed and that they are prepared for future shocks” – that was the closing remarks from Steven Maijoor’s Keynote Address at EFAMA’s Investment Management Forum which heavily focused on liquidity risk.
Despite the continuing focus on the rapidly rising COVID-19 infections rates in the US & Europe, the looming Lockdown 2.0, and the impending, potentially contentious race for the White House, October saw regulators press ahead with the launch of several significant fund regulatory developments.
As discussed in our previous blog , ESMA has written to the European Commission ahead of the EU executive’s review of the AIFMD regulation. Although ESMA has recommended a raft of potential changes, one area that appears to be garnering particular attention, is the issue of delegation and substance.
When the European Commission announced back in March 2018, a proposal to amend the Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive (AIFMD), in order to provide for a uniform regime for “pre-marketing” of alternative investment funds (AIFs) across Europe, there were many commentators that declared that “AIFMD II had finally arrived”.
Last week, ESMA published a letter to the Commission setting out 19 key areas where it believes AIFMD could be improved. Specifically, ESMA’s letter includes: harmonising the AIFMD and UCITS regimes; delegation and substance; liquidity management tools; leverage; and the harmonisation of supervision of cross-border entities.
The European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) has published a supervisory briefing on the supervision by National Competent Authorities (NCAs) of costs applicable to Undertakings for the Collective Investment in Transferable Securities (UCITS) and Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs).
