Regulatory notices
On 11 July 2023, the Luxembourg Chamber of Deputies voted the draft Law amending 5 fund industry sectoral Laws: (SICAR,SIF,UCI, AIFM and RAIF).
Firstly, the Law amends the definitions of “sophisticated investor” contained in the SICAR Law, the FIS Law and the FIAR Law respectively in order to improve consistency between the different laws and to bring the Luxembourg regime into line with European standards by lowering the current investment threshold from €125,000 to €100,000.
The AMF just updated its policy “Position Recommandation DOC-2020-03” on the information to be provided by collective investment schemes incorporating non-financial approaches.
The update extends the scope of this policy to include French and foreign European long-term investment funds (ELTIFs) marketed to retail investors in France.
On 5 July 2023, the Financial Conduct Authority published the Periodic Fees (2023/2024) and Other Fees Instrument 2023 setting the regulatory fees and levies to be applied in 2023/2024.
From a cross-border distribution perspective, the FCA decreases substantially the fees for EEA UCITS marketed under the TPR compared to the current tariff and also to the proposed fees in the consultation.
On 3 July 2023, ESMA published its second report on the Marketing requirements and marketing communications under the Regulation on cross-border fund distribution.
In accordance with the regulation, this report is presented every two years to the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission.
In the last days, the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier updated its form used to submit the request for approval of subfunds for funds already regulated as well as 2 FAQs (one FAQ CBDF on notification procedures and the FAQ on Market entry form).
Greenwashing is a growing concern, not only for investors but also for the European Commission and Esas, both of whom engaged in a process to identify risks and appropriate measures to counteract this.
Last month, ESMA published its Progress Report on the Greenwashing Response to the European Commission’s request for input on “greenwashing risks and the supervision of sustainable finance policies”.
On 14 June 2023, ESMA published an update of its QA on the application of the UCITS Directive providing clarifications on the following topics:
ESMA updated its Q&A on Application of the AIFMD by adding a new question in a new “Marketing” section.
On 8 June 2023, ESMA released the 6th version of its AIFMD Reporting Technical guide.
The new IT technical guidance – revision 6 introduces new validation rules making more fields mandatory or with stricter rules to improve data quality. The new changes are specified in the tab ‘change history’ of the excel document.