Regulatory notices
At year-end 2023, the Securities and Futures Commission updates several funds guidances, frequent asked questions and information checklists impacting the marketing of funds in Hong Kong as well as the distribution of European funds.
We have reviewed the new documents and set out below the main changes identified.
Following the implementation of the (de)notification processes via CSSF eDesk portal applicable on 2nd of January 2024, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier updated its FAQ CBDF on notification procedure.
The AMF modifies its position-Recommendation DOC-2020-03 setting out the information on the consideration of non-financial criteria that French collective investment undertakings and foreign UCITS authorised for marketing in France may disclose. These provisions are described for the various regulatory documents (key investor information documents, prospectus) and marketing materials.
More than likely the CSSF’s last publications of the year, two new FAQs have been updated: the FAQ CSSF – Luxembourg law of 12 July 2013 on alternative investment fund managers and the FAQ CSSF – Law of 17 December 2010.
The Fin-FSA recently published its Processing fees starting from 1 January 2024.
Processing fees on cross-border activities:
The Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier in Luxembourg published a new version of its Frequent Asked Questions on virtual assets.
The question no 3 has been updated related to the requirement of any authorisation for the management of virtual assets by Luxembourg fund management companies.
The FinDatEx initiative published an updated version of the EET on 21 December.
According to the release note, “this new version EET V1.1.2 includes typo corrections, transition from M/C to O of transitional scope 1, 2 data fields, and two new data fields 103 (Frequency of PAI) and 616 (snapshot list of invested countries in the sovereign sub part of the portfolio).
The Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) recently published the user guide for the eDesk UCITS marketing notification system. This new method replaces the preceding method submitted via e-File or Sofie.
All the necessary information and practical specifications in relation to the transmission of cross-border marketing notifications and de-notifications for UCITS through eDesk or through an API solution (S3technology) can be found in this guide.
On December 1, 2023, the Financial Conduct Authority has opened a consultation on the long-waited implementation of the Overseas Funds Regime (OFR).
In 2021, the Government legislated to create the OFR, a streamline process to recognise foreign funds under FSMA s271A. This new regime relies on the principle of equivalence between the UK legislation and those of the fund domiciles, the existence of a mutual co-operation between the regulator and the national competent authorities abroad and if they provide equivalent consumer protection outcomes for particular categories of scheme.